


strong is your hold, o mortal flesh

by anderfels



Series: what stranger miracles [5]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Arguing, Asphyxiation, Bad Jokes, Bad Puns, Bodily Fluids, Bruises, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Cigarettes, Coping, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Dogs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Fear, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Forehead Touching, Happy Ending, Holding Hands, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kissing, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Sleepiness, Slow Burn, Smoking, Strangulation, Touching, Touchy-Feely, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vomiting, again v mild, excessive use of sun/moon metaphors, v mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 13:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anderfels/pseuds/anderfels
Summary: Who knew maize could be such a maze, Arthur muses. Huffing at his own brilliant wordplay, he makes a mental note to tell Charles that joke. Later. When they’re not shooting bounty hunters in a cornfield game of cat and mouse.Set during the Chapter 3 mission 'Magicians for Sport', Arthur and Charles track Trelawny to some bounty hunters, and as usual, everything goes spectacularly wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> here we are again! i'm sorry for the delay between this and the previous fic. this coming month is the busiest, most stressful time of year for me, so i'll be back as soon as possible with the next one, if march doesn't kill me first ;v;
> 
> thank you so so much for all the feedback as always. you guys keep me going, and i really hope you enjoy ♥

_Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,_

_You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream),_

_I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you._

  


He’s alone and on foot when he returns, boots kicking up dust from the trail. Pushes wearily through the blackhaw and philodendron clusters, and makes his way unheeded across the campsite, pausing only to crouch and rub Cain’s ears, granting the dog the last of his energy in a soft smile.

Fireflies flit about the central oak tree, its ancient branches thrumming with cicadas, chirping tree crickets. The day is at its end, the violet hour before true dark, just poker games and campfire stories left to fill the evening, but Arthur isn’t tempted by any of it, simply heads over to Magpie, finding her grazing with the other mares. Taima pricks up her ears and burrs when he reaches them, and after some silent arguing, he relents, offering her a mint from the stash in his back pocket. Branwen too, as she’s close enough to huff her indignance at being ignored.

There’s blood splashed across his shirt sleeve, but whether it’s his or not, Charles isn’t close enough to tell.

It’s been another hectic few weeks. The move to Clemens Point was not the beginning of a calm and peaceful countryside vacation. Not that anyone truly expected it to be, but after the violence with which they escaped Valentine, Charles reckons even Arthur had hoped there was some truth in Dutch’s proposed plan to ‘lie low’.

No such luck.

Within days, Arthur is ingratiated with the local law enforcement, and as soon as Dutch is out of sight, he’s tossing the shiny deputy star pinned over his heart to the ground like it’s trash. “On the run from one bunch of lawmen, working for another,” Charles had said, and hadn’t needed to hide his incredulity, Arthur agreeing wholly with the sentiment. The badge embeds itself in the soft red soil by his cot, stuck with three points up like a dead autumn leaf, and Arthur leaves it there to be trodden into the mud, sure it’s barely worth melting down for scrap.

They talk about it; they talk most nights, whenever they can steal a moment, and humour mostly plasters over the cracks of shared doubt in them both, but Arthur’s unease with Dutch and Hosea’s scheming has Charles feeling even more uncomfortable than he was already. He trusts his gut. And his gut tells him to trust Arthur.

Being so far south is...a challenge. He’s effectively stuck in camp, save for short hunting trips in Scarlett Meadows, as is Lenny, and Tilly. Even Javier to some extent. Trapped between the lake and on the other side, Lemoyne. And if he had to choose the lesser evil, the lake would win every time. Cottonmouth snakes and biting jackfish don’t have the same history of lynching as the inhabitants of Lemoyne. Part of him hates being so cynical, and then Lenny tells him about his fringe encounters with the Lemoyne Raiders, and cynicism doesn’t seem unfounded at all.

He watches Arthur again, brushing Magpie, combing through her mane and tail before letting her be for the night. Checks the hay set out for all the horses, the water basins, and then looks her tack over too, saddle and bridle over the hitching post next to his wagon.

Satisfied, he tips his fingers at Charles from across the camp, seeming to head towards him as Charles does the same in response, until he’s called at once by Dutch, pulling Arthur helplessly in the opposite direction, over to his tent.

“So what do you think?” Dutch asks, and Charles looks pointedly down at the carving in his hands, at least attempting not to eavesdrop, though Dutch’s inability to speak quietly doesn’t make it easy. It’s nearly complete now, his bison horn, the figure almost fully emerged from the brown keratin. Just finishing detail, and then polish.

The frustration in Arthur is obvious as always, shoulders tight and tense, hands restless. He adjusts his belt, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as Dutch talks, grandiose, gesturing as though addressing a much greater audience than just two people. “On the one hand, we’ve got the Gray family,” Dutch says, amused. “Scots, degenerates, drunkards… The local law.” He laughs, hands out wide. “You couldn’t make this stuff up!”

Arthur nods, Micah chuckling at Dutch’s left side, like an obtuse court jester who’s been paid to agree to his king’s every decision. “Rich as Croesus. And on the other, their mortal enemies, the Braithwaites.”

Looking up at Micah, Dutch continues, barely restraining his delight. “Moonshiners, _very_ hypocritical, both rolling, we believe-”

“In _gold_ ,” says Micah. Dutch points a finger up at him.

Charles has only heard about the feud Dutch has them wading into from Arthur’s secondhand accounts, and what Arthur’s told him hasn’t filled him with a lot of confidence. If there’s gold to be won, perhaps it would be worth the Southern discomfort, the overt flirting with yet more danger, when the danger they were already in was only getting worse. But the potential of gold is only potential. And from what Arthur’s told him, these ‘grand plantation families’ - the sort of white people Charles would admittedly love to see robbed and humiliated - are the washed-up relics of bygone ages, crumbling with woodworm and deep incurable rot, destitute of any riches, monetary or otherwise.

The gold Dutch hungers for sounds far more like a myth than any kind of reality.

“And in the middle of it all, you’ve got some inbred retellin’ of Romeo and Juliet,” Arthur says, wan humour in his voice.

“Exactly.”

“So what you thinkin’?”

Micah steps out of Dutch’s shadow, features lit by the lamplight, like a particularly ugly jack-o-lantern. “We try to rob ‘em both,” he says, nearly whispering, hands in the air before him as he paints this awe-inspiring masterpiece of an idea to an enraptured audience, eyes alight and narrow like a weasel’s.

Arthur just stares at him. “You sure?”

“Why not?” Dutch says, and Arthur stares some more, eyebrows raised as he looks from Dutch to Micah, and back to Dutch, mouth opening and shutting twice before he speaks.

“‘Cause we got lawmen in three different states after us?”

Tutting, Dutch holds up a finger. “Last thing I want is to get us into trouble, but we need _money_. Now, we have the opportunity here to put ourselves in the middle of somethin’ very profitable, and best of all, ain’t nobody gonna know we was here.”

“Right,” Arthur says, unconvinced, “But we ain’t _safe_. Bein’ so far south might be well and fine for you and me, but it ain’t for the others. For Charles and Lenny. Miss Tilly. They’re even more in danger than what we are, we can’t just-”

“This is a _golden_ opportunity-”

“We was supposed to be lyin’ _low_ ,” Arthur pleads, frowning, trying to gather the threads of his patience. “And we ain’t even sure there _is_ gold in this mess, just a lotta folks stuck livin’ in the past.”

As Dutch shares a glance with him, Micah scoffs, tossing his head away before he retakes his position by Dutch’s side, hand leant on the back of Dutch’s chair. “We need _money_ , Morgan.”

“I _know_ , but-”

“No _buts_!” snaps Dutch, hands held in front of him, physically blocking any more comments. “I need you with me on this, Arthur. Son. I need _you_...with me.”

Charles can’t see his face, but he can picture the expression Arthur’s wearing. A sick mix of worry and conflict, childlike guilt, frustration flaring his nostrils. There are strings around Arthur, and Dutch is the puppeteer making him dance.

“Even without us,” Dutch says, quieter. “These fools are gonna kill each other anyway. May as well make some money outta them.”

For a second, Arthur just stands there, gaze fixed somewhere on the ground. Finally he sighs, shakes his head. “Sure,” he says, meagre, just within Charles’ ability to hear. 

Micah claps Dutch’s shoulder, smiling with all the charm and authenticity of a boa constrictor convincing the rabbit in its coils to stop struggling. He tips his hat to Arthur and Dutch, and leaves them to talk, teeth catching the light under his moustache.

“Well…” Arthur says, briefly pressing his fingers to his eyes. “Hosea’s headin’ back to see that Braithwaite woman.”

“Good,” Dutch says, cheered up immediately by Arthur’s compliance. “Hosea should definitely take the lead on this. He’ll play these hicks like a fiddle.” He stands, grinning, disturbing the fluttering insects swirling about the lamp on his tent. “I sent Sean over to Braithwaite manor too. You meet up with them, then go and join John and Javier at the Grays’ place.”

“John and Javier?”

“Somethin’ to do with the Braithwaites’ prize horses.”

Arthur’s voice is harsher when he replies. “Well how the hell did we get an in at the Grays’ place?”

“Sheriff Gray kindly put in a word with his father,” Dutch says, resting his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. He has the look of a father attempting to explain what he sees as a simple concept to his son, managing only to patronise and upset him further. “It ain’t _that_ complicated.”

Arthur elbows his hand away.

“We gotta convince each family that we’re on their side, and then...we rob ‘em both,” says Dutch, setting out the picture with his hands in the thick air. “Before they figure out it was us that done it, and not the other lot, we’ll be long gone.”

He turns back to Arthur, eyes narrow. Charles can see his rings glinting in the firelight. “Think of it as...payback for my daddy,” Dutch hisses, like catching tinder, a hawk that’s been recently balked of a field mouse, looking for another small animal to devour.

“Payback?” Arthur says, voice low and growling. “I ain’t in the revenge business, Dutch. Least of all for somethin’ that happened a _long_ time ago.”

“Well,” says Dutch, with an equal crackle in his voice. “Guess we all gotta pay for something.”

He holds Arthur’s gaze for a long moment, scrutinising, and then turns away, ducking beneath the canvas of his tent with one last comment, “If you will excuse me, Arthur. I got to write a letter.” The tent flaps are unfastened to close off the outside world, and Arthur is summarily dismissed, shoulders dropping as he sighs and walks away.

Lenny jogs Charles from his daydream, propping a rifle against the crate he’s sat on, the barrel clattering on the wood. “Hey Charles,” he says, stretching his arms out with a yawn. “Good night?”

“Mm,” Charles hums, pocketing his carving and tools. Glances again at Arthur, watching him sit on his cot, pulling off his boots with both hands. “Good enough. My watch?”

“Sure is.”

Hopping down from the crate, Charles picks up a rifle for himself, and checks the sights as he says goodnight to Lenny. He slings it over his shoulder, but Arthur catches his eye again, as he so often does. Only debating for a second, Charles heads over.

There’s singing from the poker table across the camp, Miss Grimshaw and Karen making their own entertainment without Javier to accompany them with his guitar. Mr Pearson and Uncle are drinking around the campfire, and Lenny joins them with a bottle, to share one last drink before bed. The mood seems good, all things considered. Food is plentiful, and the warmth is welcome after the lurking memory of the West Grizzlies, of Blackwater, lingering over all of them. Ghosts in dark corners.

Perhaps the southern sunlight will do them some good after all. Charles can’t be sure.

“Arthur,” he says, soft, stopping a respectable distance from Arthur’s cot, where he’s leant back against the side of his wagon, bare feet up on the bed, knees fallen to either side of him. He lifts his head, firelight bright in his eyes.

“Hey,” he replies. There’s a lit cigarette in his hand, glowing between his fingers. “You on guard?”

“Mm. Lenny just finished.”

“Be careful, a’ight?”

“I’ll try,” Charles chuckles his barely-there huff, shifting his weight. “How was meeting the Braithwaites?”

The sneer on Arthur’s face answers before he does. He takes a drag of his cigarette, scrunching up his nose as he exhales. “I met some foul folk in my time, but Ma Braithwaite is just about the foulest old hag ever walked this earth.”

“That bad?”

“Worse. She looked like the sorta thing you’d drag out back and bury,” Arthur says, lips pulled up at Charles’ wry laugh. He gestures with his cigarette. “And had all the charm besides. Whole lotta them, madder’n a bag of cats, and meaner too. Sorta mean that’s dangerous, y’know?”

“I do. Unfortunately.”

Taking another inhale, Arthur flicks ash over the side of his cot, shaking his head as he sighs, smoke swirling from his nose. “I ain’t sure about none of this. I ain’t sure none of y’all should be gettin’ mixed up in it neither.”

Charles hums to show he’s listening, pushing his hair behind his ear. Picking his head up again, Arthur frowns up at him, lips pressed together. Words don’t come easily to him at the best of times. Always trying to be careful, pick the correct ones to voice. “If Dutch an’ Hosea want to...fleece these _fine_ folks they can do it. But it’s more’n just them in danger for the sake of some _gossip_ ‘bout stashed Confederate gold.” He sighs, tired. “It’s...all of you.”

Echoing his sigh, Charles takes the few steps into Arthur’s space, and sits on the edge of his cot, perching politely on the canvas with his rifle slung beyond vertical. He watches the fluttering moths crowding the lantern on Dutch’s tent, dazed and directionless in the orange glow, and then looks back at Arthur, feeling much the same as he meets his eyes. Enamoured. “Can I…?”

He gestures at Arthur’s cigarette.

“Sure,” Arthur says, deep in his voice, and offers Charles his hand, cigarette caught between his fingers. Heart chiming like a church bell, Charles folds one hand around Arthur’s, keeping it still, and leans close enough to take a drag himself, lips hovering an inch from Arthur’s fingers before he pulls away, holding both the smoke and Arthur’s hand for a moment longer.

“Thanks,” Charles sighs and finally exhales, shoulders sinking as he drops Arthur’s hand, dragging his gaze away from Arthur’s flushed stare. Getting lost in his eyes is a cliché he’s far too susceptible to.

“You know Dutch better than me,” he says softly, again tucking his hair behind his ear from where it’s fallen. He looks back at Arthur, noting the new pink rising in his cheeks unbidden, like spring blossom on an apple tree. “But we’re all behind him.”

“You don’t gotta butter it for me, Charles.”

A sigh, and Charles takes a second to pick his words. “We are behind him. A lot of us owe him our lives.”

“I know...”

“But I trust you more than I do him.” He looks at Arthur again, only sincerity in his expression. “I trust your judgement. I trust _you_. And Dutch should too.”

Arthur is quiet for a long moment. His cigarette smoulders, glowing like the lanterns around the campsite, rich orange. It crumbles with one last drag, and Arthur flicks the stub to the ground, where Charles tamps it out with his boot heel, catching the glint of the forgotten deputy star in the mud. “Thanks,” he says, soft.

“Sure,” Charles replies, and shifts the rifle’s strap on his shoulder. “Now get some sleep, you look like shit.”

Laughing, Arthur’s face brightens instantly, clapping Charles on the back as he stands. “I’m sure, Hosea had me playin’ dress-up all afternoon.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm. Favourite pastime of his, scammin’ locals while I play idiot.”

Charles adjusts the rifle again, tilting his head, deadpan. “Surely that ain’t so hard for you.”

“Shit-” Arthur barks with laughter, all the exhaustion seeming to melt from his face, replaced with such a rare and gorgeous smile, laughter wheezing in his chest with how sudden it is. That was far too easy; he handed Charles that joke. “You’re a slick bastard, you are,” he says, wry fondness replacing the wear in his voice. “Go on, get gone, ain’t you got a job to do?”

With a sly chuckle, Charles takes a step back, politely exiting Arthur’s space. Pauses, just looking at him for a second longer. “Making you laugh is just as important,” he says, understated smile catching the lamplight. He salutes. “Night Arthur.”

“Night,” Arthur replies, still smiling, mimicking the gesture as Charles walks away, out into the night. “Oh- Thanks for untacking Magpie!”

The silhouette simply waves its hand to show he’s heard, taking the rifle in both hands as his boots brush through the undergrowth, heading out to the perimeter.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You two make quite a pair,” Charles says, as Arthur throws the stick back to the water for the umpteenth time. From the moment Cain wandered into camp, he’d found a best friend in Arthur.  
> “He’s the brains of the outfit."  
> "So you're the beauty?"

_(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)_

  


Morning swells across Lemoyne, sticky and golden like honey. The grass is singing in the meadows and marshland deltas, tangled with tickweed and nettles, pitcher plants and ferns, sunlight pouring into the Kamassa floodplain from the eastern swamps to the humid forests on Flat Iron Lake. Magnolias are blooming on summer’s shoulder, bright spots of colour amongst the sassafras and coffee plants, like lanterns strung across a boardwalk.

Clemens Point hums with halcyon activity, like the tiny beating wings of a hummingbird, a low murmur of potential as the camp begins to stir and start the day. The lake water laps the shore, thick as oil, and sloshes as a dog’s four paws splash clumsily in and out.

“Good boy!” Arthur’s grinning, stooping to pick the stick up from the sand as Cain bows and barks, tail wagging so hard his entire body wiggles. He pulls his arm back, pauses, delighting in the anticipation in Cain’s face before he finally throws the stick. It cartwheels over the shoreline and lands in the water with a wet smack, Cain plunging in after it, bounding through the shallows to retrieve it before it drifts past the end of the jetty. He doesn’t bother shaking his wet fur, simply careening back to Arthur like a mop on legs, dropping the stick triumphantly at his feet, already impatient for it to be thrown again.

“You two make quite a pair,” Charles says, as Arthur throws the stick back to the water for the umpteenth time. From the moment Cain wandered into camp, he’d found a best friend in Arthur.

Arthur looks back at him, sitting on the grass before the land falls away to the sand beneath, carving the horn in his deft hands. 

They’d had coffee and eggs together after tending to the horses, enjoying the sunrise behind the clearing, spreading slick across the river. Cain had patiently waited for a piece of Arthur’s cornbread while Charles chopped kindling, then lent the axe to a piece of driftwood to create a perfectly-sized throwing stick. A good morning so far.

“He’s the brains of the outfit,” Arthur says, grinning when Charles’ gaze flicks up to him, one raised eyebrow, stifling his amusement.

“So you’re the beauty?” he quips back, and silently basks in Arthur’s snickered laugh, throwing the stick down the beach again as Cain gallops after it, paws kicking up the sand.

Charles blows dust off his carving, smoothing with his thumb, dimly aware of Abigail and Mrs Adler - Sadie, now - drinking their coffee somewhere behind him, clustered around the stew pot hanger. The camp wakes slowly in the rising heat, grateful for the shade of the old oak trees, the cool breeze that periodically rolls in from the lake.

He stretches back in the grass, watching Arthur still. Unburdened by the stress he’d been holding onto the previous evening, he’s shining bright as summer once again, laughing as he feints a throw for Cain, and gets several indignant barks in response. They continue their game for some time, sunlight higher with each minute, hot on Charles’ back, and as the morning wears on, the camp around them melts away.

When Dutch starts shouting, Charles is so engrossed in Arthur that it takes more than a few moments to register at all.

“What do you _want_ from me?!”

Standing slowly from where he’s rubbing Cain’s wet ears, Arthur looks in the direction of the commotion, then at Charles, who shrugs. Molly’s voice spikes sharply from across the camp, desperate. “You’ve barely touched me in weeks! I just want to be treated with some respect! And affection!”

Oh.

Arthur again looks to Charles, eyebrows raised to the brim of his hat. The stick is graciously given to Cain, who leaps away with his hard-won prize, settling down the beach to chew the wood between his paws.

“You think this is the way to a man’s _affection_?” Dutch yells, surely loud enough they can hear the argument in Rhodes. “Moping, and pestering all the damn day?”

Around the coffee pot still, Sadie and Abigail quickly sidetrack themselves with the chickens’ feed, heading over to the small coop between the trees. Tilly and Mary-Beth conspicuously divert their attention to the laundry they’re washing, conversations ceasing at once, leaving only Karen still watching from beside their wagon, looking like she might pull up a chair.

Hair frazzled like fraying yarn, Molly storms from Dutch’s tent, anger pink in her cheeks. She’s snarling, whipping around to face Dutch like a stalking panther, her dress fabric billowing around her. Far too opulent for the humble background. The hem dips into the mud. “I can do a lot worse than that,” she says, hissing.

“Is that a _threat_?!” Dutch’s voice wavers, the warning dark of waves in a storm, something perilous hanging in the air above the camp, like ripe fruit on a thin and creaking branch. “Another great way to a man’s affection!”

“Oh shut up!” Molly snaps, the shrieking wail of a rusty hinge, uneven and breaking on the last syllable with just-restrained tears. She hikes a handful of her dress in her hand, and stalks past Arthur’s wagon, dainty boots slipping on the soft red earth, and then the sand along the shore. 

“Gladly!” Dutch yells after her, throwing his hand in the direction she walks.

Silence stares uncomfortably back at him, even the Reverend sheepish and speechless for once. “Ain’t you all got work to do?!” Dutch snaps. 

The camp scatters like birds.

A look is shared between Charles and Arthur, raised eyebrows both, Arthur pulling a face that makes Charles snicker. Molly’s retreating figure is just visible across the beach, far in the distance. He’d picked up on the tension between her and Dutch - he’s not especially intelligent when it comes to women, but he isn’t blind. It hadn’t exploded quite like that before though, so obvious and loud. Idly, Arthur wonders if he should go to her, just to make sure she’s okay. She’s never been very warm to him, but Dutch’s ire isn’t particularly pleasant for anyone to deal with, more so when it’s someone who cares for him. No matter how misguided that care is.

Before he can ponder, Dutch calls his name.

“ _Arthur!_ Arthur, get your ass over here!”

“You’ve been summoned,” Charles mumbles, sharing another loaded glance with Arthur as he ambles his way up the sand, footsteps careful, like he’s trying to tiptoe past a sleeping bear. Karen mimes a hangman’s noose around her neck as he passes her, making him snicker, skirting around John’s tent to meet his fate.

Dutch’s moustache glistens with spit droplets, deep furrow in his brow as he rounds on Arthur as soon as he appears outside his tent. “Why’re you still here? I gave you plenty jobs to do.”

“I-” Arthur scowls, petulant. “It’s barely 10, I was just finishin’ breakfast-” Sighing at the look on Dutch’s face, he gives up. “What now? Sweating yet?”

“Of course I’m sweating. We’re in some...disease-ridden, swampy, dixie-whistlin’ _shithole_.”

A scoff, and Arthur tilts his head. “Thought this place was ‘a golden opportunity’.”

“It is,” Dutch snaps, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t mean I gotta like it. I been thinking.”

Arthur blinks at him. “That ain’t good.”

“About something Trelawny said,” Dutch continues, levelling his glare, rooting Arthur in place like he’s still 15 and stealing food, filling his pockets just in case it’s another week before his next bite. “Until we know more about these ‘bounty hunters’ he was waxing on about, ain’t too much harm wasting good liquor on sweating.”

“Hm. So?”

“ _So_ , I think you should pay old Mr Trelawny a visit, find out exactly what he knows, and who he spoke to.”

Charles enters his peripheral vision, lighting a cigarette as he walks past the central oak tree, and Arthur’s attention is drawn to him like a cat to a bird, a fish hopelessly caught with the hook in its mouth. His shirt is a deep burgundy colour today, reminding Arthur of dogwood leaves in autumn, or the purplish juice of elderberries. 

“Take Charles with you,” Dutch says, and Arthur snaps back to look at him, eyes wide, sure he’s been caught red-handed, blatantly ogling Charles. Rambling excuses bubble in his throat, ready to explain away the desire he’s sure is written in every line of his face. “Huh?” is all he manages.

“The sight of the pair of you would make a statue sing out its secrets,” says Dutch, suddenly amused at whatever image he’s picturing. His hands clap together, seemingly content to forget his argument with Molly.

“Oh.” 

Arthur lets out a breath, rubbing the back of his neck, skin hot. The way his heart flutters at just the prospect of spending the day with Charles makes him feel giddy, wobbly on his feet like he’s drunk. Another chance to ride out with him. Fast becoming his favourite thing. 

He swallows, and smiles out of one side of his mouth. “Sure. I’ll uh- Get on that first.”

Dutch dismisses him, and Arthur spins on his toe, pointing finger guns at Charles, who’s leaning against the tree trunk, smoking his cigarette. Observing. So often on the fringes of Arthur’s attention of late, never intruding but always _there_ , a silent reassurance that he’s around if Arthur wants him. Needs him. As if there’s ever a time when he doesn’t.

For a second, Arthur can only see his lips as they were the previous night, inches away from his fingers as he’d pressed forward and taken that drag from Arthur’s smoke. How his eyes had shut as he inhaled, and Arthur had wanted nothing but to pull at his shirt collar and kiss him, push him down on the bed, drink in the smoke before he breathed out.

“You need me?” Charles asks, looking at Arthur from under his eyelashes, not raising his head fully. Unacceptably gorgeous. There’s no way he’s not doing it on purpose. Just to drive Arthur mad before Dutch does.

His vest is unbuttoned over his broad chest, soft napped leather embellished with an arabesque of colour on both sides, strips of bright beading from shoulder to hem, individually sewn, red and sky blue, navy and white. It hangs heavily on his wide frame, open, several shirt buttons undone beneath to reveal a deep V of his chest, skin dark and bare.

Arthur wants to bite that patch of skin.

“Don’t I always,” he says, pushing his voice past the stop in his throat. Charles huffs a chuckle, and they walk together across the camp, towards the horses, Charles finishing his cigarette along the way.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he watches, Charles presses his boot to the man’s neck. “You stay there,” he spits, just a rumble in his chest like an earthquake, dangerous and electric in Arthur’s bones, and as he drags his eyes up to his face, Arthur has to remind himself to breathe the air the man beneath his boot cannot.

_I am to see to it that I do not lose you._

  


“Where we going?”

Taima lopes alongside Magpie, steady and familiar. The red dirt is soft beneath their hooves, leaving perfect shoe impressions as they take the track through the woods, much the same path they’d taken to find Clemens Point.

It seems like an age ago, despite it only being a couple of weeks. Summer has a firm hold of Lemoyne now, heat haze hanging over the road into Rhodes, clinging to the marshlands around Robard Farm and threading about the trees nearer the coast. The sun filters through the dust in the air, and scatters, like golden ribbons through the green gauze of the tree canopy, a dazzling veil dappled with light.

“Dutch wants us to have a...talk, with our pal Mister Trelawny,” Arthur replies, tipping his head down to shield his eyes from the flashing sun when it breaks through the trees. “About bounty hunters, s’posedly comin’ for us.”

Charles huffs his quiet amusement. “Trelawny. I only met him a couple times, but he’s…”

“Like one of them plants what eats flies?”

“Ha. He’s...a strange one.”

“Fear not,” Arthur says, chuckling. “He’s just a cockroach in fancy britches. Points his dick to piss just like the rest of us.”

This time Charles laughs out loud, sudden and surprising even himself, losing all his breath. His smile spreads across his face like butter melting in a skillet, cheekbones catching the high sun, shaking his head as he looks at Arthur. _You’re ridiculous._

“Though, to be fair, I ain’t never seen him piss, so don’t take my word on that.”

Charles snorts again, and Arthur smirks to himself, tucking his chin to his chest, cheeks round like ripe apples. If he drew Charles’ smile every day for the next year, he’s still not sure he’d manage to capture its precise beauty. He’s found that Charles has several smiles, the boldest of which he adores the most. Rare as black opal, and far more precious. Unrestrained, like it’s just him and Arthur in infinity together and the gorgeous, clumsy grin he gets - eyes creased up and cheekbones wide - is a gift just for Arthur. No one else.

They emerge from the tree cover and skirt the farmlands, songbirds taking flight from the fence posts as the horses amble past, red dust in the wake of their hooves. “Trelawny gets into nooks and crannies the rest of us can’t,” Arthur says, and tips his hat at a passing rider a moment later, making sure he’s out of earshot before continuing. “Just gotta find him before he scurries off again. Slicker’n bird shit he is.”

Rhodes appears over the pastures. A wide dirt road lined with false-front stores and whitewashed rain porches, a parade of picket fencing, everything lacquered to look slightly more fancy than it actually is. Even the drunks. There’s an air of superficial superiority about Rhodes, old-fashioned and clashing, as if life there was paused thirty odd years ago and hasn’t ever caught up. Bygone beauty languishes beside abject poverty, the palliating celebration of history beside the condemnable modern consequences. A public trough latrine is dug into the dirt next to alabaster marble foundations, veteran soldiers begging ignored beneath a statue to a dead Confederate General, the gold on the plaque worth more than all the possessions they’ll ever own.

The few grander buildings, Colonial pilasters and columns, Ionian white, are starkly juxtaposed with the peeling siding and clapboard next door, the lopsided shingles, jaunty window boxes full of parched and drooping sweetpeas. It’s the sort of town an eloquent person might describe as ‘quaint’.

Arthur reckons ‘ass backwards’ is a better term.

“I think it’s just up here,” he says, nodding towards the east and sitting heavy in his saddle, letting Magpie slow to a steady walk to skirt around the town. Taima follows beside her, and they turn away from the main street, flanking the antique town church, sat squat on top of a slight hill, a pulpit dotted with graves amongst the grass.

“Looks...nice,” Charles says, and Arthur snorts, eyeing a broken wagon cluttering the entrance to a dead-end track, overgrown with ferns and bluestar flowers to make a humble shelter for wandering raccoons, curious squirrels. A colourful huddle of caravans and covered wagons crowd together between the trees, tenanted tight like stacked hen houses, littered with unwanted furniture and wheels, dirty canvas awnings, the detritus of communal life washed up amongst the shanty houses like flotsam on a beach. Compared to the albeit modest luxury of Rhodes below, the caravan park is essentially a slum, painted in bright colours as if to rebrand the destitution and call it ‘rustic charm’.

Still, the residents who aren’t too drunk to notice them seem polite enough as they ride through.

They dismount across from a rickety yellow caravan-shack, a fire pit outside, with crates and old tables by way of seats. There’s a clothesline strung from the neighbouring caravan, someone’s linens hung to dry in the heat, and a wash bucket overflowing with brown water by the wagon’s front wheel. A cat peeks at them from the neighbour’s porch. “Reckon it’s that one with the fire.”

If it wasn’t mostly falling down, it’d likely be a nice enough home. The shutters are clinging on their hinges, but still painted a once-pleasing red, despite the missing slats giving them more of an air of cell bars than anything else. There’s a chimney, and a raised window in the roof for extra light, eaves decorated with simply curved spandrels to overhang the small porch.

As it is, it’s a dilapidated relic of a time when someone cared. Like much of Rhodes.

“Mr Trelawny?”

A dog barks from across the way, hushed by his owner, a stout woman washing dirty clothes in a bucket. “Hey boy!” Arthur waves at the dog, getting a laugh from Charles beside him before turning back to the shack. “Trelawny? You here?”

If he is, he’s not in the mood for greeting visitors.

Charles shrugs. “Well, let’s take a look, I guess,” Arthur says, and advances up the caravan’s front steps. They were obviously once painted green, creaking and splintered now, glass broken in the window panes, the delicate fretwork beneath the bow roof hardly noticeable even when Arthur stands directly underneath.

He ducks under the door frame, ivy growing around some kind of painted sign hanging over the batten door, whatever it says long lost to time. The door groans as he pushes it, clattering into some cans on the floor, an upturned book fallen and crushing its own pages as it rucks along the carpet. “Shit,” he says, and frowns at the capsule of chaos inside. “This don’t look good.”

If the outside was a mess, the inside looks like a bomb has gone off. Objects and personal effects litter the floor. Drawers are pulled out and hanging, cupboard doors thrown open, shelves emptied.

“Someone got here first,” Charles mumbles behind him, tension in his shoulders, like an animal that’s caught an unfamiliar scent and crouches low to the ground, ready to fight or flee.

Arthur hums his agreement, straightening out an ornately detailed rug with his boot, flattening out the tassels, the sort of thing you’d see in a street market claiming to be Persian silk. 

It’s a small enough space even without the mess, a suitcase upturned in the entryway, a tall cabinet pulled off-kilter away from the wall and stripped. Arthur isn’t a man of much neatness, but it’d bother even him to live with everything so disordered, let alone someone like Trelawny. This can’t have been by design.

There must have been an awful struggle.

A plate of food is forgotten on a desk beside the cabinet, half-eaten bread and a cold cut of meat, a butter knife and a chunk of cheese fallen off the plate, as if dropped in a hurry. “Food’s barely touched…”

Tins and containers of food ingredients are strewn and spilling on the desk surface, seemingly haven fallen from a small shelf above the window. Beside the desk, various newspapers have been unfolded and torn in the commotion, shreds scattered around Trelawny’s bed like tufts of wool, snug in the corner of the caravan.

Again, it would be cosy if not for the disarray - a large bed set in a curtained alcove, several plump pillows at its head. It’s far nicer than most beds he sleeps in. Multiple blankets, a soft quilt, clean sheets, all falling to the floor, underwear tangled in the pile.

“Must’ve been here recently,” Arthur says, peering under the bed for a second. A chamber pot is underneath, exquisitely decorated porcelain, looking like something out of a royal palace rather than a rundown shack in Rhodes. Maybe Trelawny does piss after all. “Bed’s not made. Like he just got up.”

Charles is poking shards of crockery with his boot, frowning at an upturned table, documents and a wall painting littering the faded carpet. He murmurs his agreement, and together they pick their way further through the rubble of Trelawny’s life, tiptoeing around broken glass, a tin of hair pomade, lithographs in wooden frames, a battered hat, mismatched clothes. It’s like an incredibly tiny battlefield.

Around the corner, another section has been joined to the main wagon, a raised hut of simple slatted timber. Charles crouches to inspect the washstand, the circular tin bath, and as he moves to join him, Arthur pauses, eyes drawn to the floor. Blood is splashed beneath a picture frame, staining the gaudy carpet. “There’s some blood here,” he says, and Charles frowns as he looks over. “This really ain’t good.”

Another few spots of blood continue to the back door past the stove, cast-off in strings down the steps and past the open door, the dirt beyond scuffed and dented as if someone landed heavily, and struggled to stand. Arthur ducks outside, and Charles follows a second later, staring down at the marks in the earth like he’s reading lines in a book.

“Big struggle,” he says, with a seriousness in his voice that he always gets when concentrating, deep and determined. “Blood’s in lines - quick movements. Seems pretty recent, I’d say.”

Arthur hums, watching him.

“I guess, maybe… Last night? The sun hasn’t hit all of the blood yet, so it would’ve happened sometime...yesterday evening or later. Twelve hours ago, I reckon.”

“I love when you do that,” Arthur says, and immediately wishes he hadn’t, scrunching up his nose at his own admission. Pink flares in his cheeks, like the abundant magnolia Lemoyne seems to love, and he pointedly turns away as if to examine a different patch of dirt, pressing at his eyes with his fingers.

All he hears is Charles’ low chuckle from behind him, soothing, like the quiet tumbling of ocean waves. “Maybe that’s why I do it,” he says, and only smirks at Arthur’s questioning look in response, his tilted head, the way he runs his teeth over his bottom lip when he gets lost in his thoughts.

It takes Arthur a second, but he finally remembers the gravity of the situation, which isn’t the best time for flirting, willing some blood back up to his brain. “Show off,” he mumbles, and can’t help his own smirk, hiding beneath the brim of his hat, scuffing his boot across a footprint on the ground.

Calling the horses over, Charles follows Arthur’s gaze, stooping next to him to check the tracks in the soft earth. When he stands, they’re in each other’s space, and neither makes any effort to move away, Arthur close enough to see each individual seed bead on Charles’ vest.

“How’s your tracking these days?” he asks, and only turns from Arthur when Taima and Magpie amble towards them from the front of the caravan house.

“Alright, I guess.” He shrugs. “Got some tips from a master.”

“You should be an expert then.”

Huffing a laugh, Arthur mounts up, rubbing Magpie’s crest. “If I ain’t, it’s the teacher’s fault.” He tries to pick out the trail in the dirt, furrow in his brow. Charles is watching when he looks up, regarding him with yet another expression Arthur’s never found a name for, unable to put words to the particular way in which Charles looks at him sometimes. Something he’s never seen directed at him, before Charles galloped into his life. It’s a true-felt expression, honest and reassuring, like a bare hand touching his, Charles’ brown eyes always appearing to be somehow lit from within, as though he carries his own sunlight.

“Well,” he says, and lets Taima have her reins, stretch her neck down. “Lead the way, then.”

Arthur smiles, lips together, and nudges Magpie into moving, trotting as they reach the bottom of the hill, leaving the rundown caravans behind. Whatever the expression is, he loves it. Loves Charles’ eyes, loves his smile, loves his hands. Loves hi-

Loves.

A word that feels far too big. Far too beautiful for his clumsy mouth.

Sighing softly, Arthur screws his eyes shut for a second, and then refocuses, following the trail to the south, back the way they’d come. The hoofprints aren’t too difficult to see, imprinted in the soft clay-like ground and baking in the high sun. Blood is spattered occasionally too, just a slightly different shade to the red-brown earth.

The mist has cleared up since the morning, Southfield Flats stretching emerald and open across from the railroad track, sun reflected in the sodden fields, blurred like watercolours on a canvas. Green smudges into brown, the still pools sweating slick colour like oil, bracketed by thick clusters of bulrushes, pitcher plants and horsetails, and broken too by floating waterlilies, pinpricks of white amongst the dark water. A few alders grow across the wetlands, bowed with late catkins, towering hickory trees providing the only shade as the sun swells to noonday heat.

It’s grown on him. Lemoyne. Still far from where he truly longs to be, but it has its own beauty.

“That weren’t the kinda place I’d expect to see Trelawny stayin’ in,” Arthur says, keeping Magpie at a slow pace so he can follow the horseshoe trail, aware his tracking ability falls far below Charles’.

“No?”

“Normally scams himself into the best hotel in town.”

Charles scoffs, watching how Arthur’s head moves with the quick movements of his eyes, like he’s trying to read an entire page at once. His lip is caught in his teeth, crease deep between his eyebrows. They loop back beneath the church, turning vaguely to the west, away from Rhodes, Charles keeping Taima contained and steady, careful not to disturb Arthur’s concentration by hurrying.

“You know, when me and Javier went down with Trelawny, to find Sean, after the bar fight? I swear he talked the whole way and never actually said a damn thing.”

“That’s his special talent,” Arthur replies, hesitating for a second before walking Magpie on, skirting the marshes. “Also, while you’re mentioning it, you fellers started that bar fight, I got no clue why it was me ended up eatin’ a mouthful of mud.”

“Bill started it!”

“You threw a _chair_.”

“And Javier glassed a feller.”

“It was all of y’all, I was an innocent bystander as _usual_ ,” Arthur says, smirking at the faux indignation on Charles face. “But y’know...I knew then you wasn’t so serious an’ proper all the time,” he continues, satisfied and sly, like a wink. A nudge in the ribs. “You’re just as liable to misbehavin’ as I am.”

Chuckling, Charles shrugs one shoulder. “I never said I wasn’t. I can misbehave plenty.” The look Arthur gives him is teasing, drawn away from the tracks to look at him as they ride together. An invitation.

It feels so long ago now. Bringing Sean back to camp, the party that night. Singing and whiskey and Arthur’s tipsy charm. Just them and the stars. Planting the roots of whatever is blossoming between them, and has been for weeks, unfolding its petals further with every moment they spend together, turning to face the sun.

“Guess I did get breakfast with you the next mornin’,” Arthur says, the same playful tone in his voice. “So...I reckon it worked out fine.”

“I reckon so too. They say food is the way to a man’s heart.”

Arthur laughs, momentarily unsure whether he’s being teased. Still clumsy, hesitant. “Is that right?” he asks, glancing over at Charles, and finding only his usual sincerity, warm and alight in his eyes. A blush rises in his cheeks again, Arthur pointedly shifting his gaze back to the ground below them, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows the runaway hoofbeats of his heart.

They ride on following the road, the disused barn that’s become a familiar sight since their move to Clemens Point sitting cheerfully ahead, like an angular rock formation painted red. Wading birds dot the marshes like scattered leaves, brightly coloured beaks pulling through the shallows for diving insects, damselflies flitting about the water like hailstones bouncing off a roof. Butterflies too seem to be everywhere, seeking out the nettles and wildflowers, dancing petals given wings.

The tracks lead over the railroad, Charles helping Arthur find them again on the other side, and continue further on, skirting around fenced farmland before finally veering off into a patch of woodland, trees dense and dark. Just before the understory thickens, a small camp has been set up, almost hidden between the tall trunks.

“Look,” Arthur says, and Charles nods, following his gaze. Two men inhabit the camp, their horses grazing a short way from a lean-to shelter, propped on a scrap of clear earth. 

“Tracks lead right to them.”

“Mhm. Well...let’s see what they have to say.”

They dismount. One man is seated in a chair in front of the shelter, regarding them like a lizard watches a fly. Both of them are well-dressed, not the sort of folk one might suspect of alleged kidnapping. Although to Arthur, a smart man in the countryside is much more suspicious than a scruffy one.

“‘Scuse me?” The seated man watches them approach. Charles lingers in Arthur’s periphery.

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen-” Arthur waves his hand, as if he can conjure a likeness of Trelawny to help him explain. “We’re uh...we’re lookin’ for our friend.” 

Picking a piece of lint from his pressed trousers, the first man looks around the clearing, exhaling a humourless chuckle, simpering like a hyena’s grin. The hair on the back of Arthur’s neck stands up. His companion sits up in the lean-to, watching.

“I don’t think he’s here,” the first says, sarcastic. Another chuckle, sounding like a wasp trapped in a glass.

Arthur’s eyes narrow. He huffs his own brusque laugh. Dry as dirt. “Nah, huh. You seen a...strange sorta feller? Kinda formal.”

“Strange, sure,” says the first man. “Formal? Nope.”

Charles ducks by Arthur’s side, and picks an object from the ground. A cane. “He uses a cane,” he says, voice low. The second man clambers to his feet. Stares. “Looks a lot like this one.”

“Alright, you two,” Arthur says, voice slipping deeper, growling. The cane is tossed behind Charles. A laboured breath, a sigh. Resignation to the inevitable. Arthur eyes the first man, who also stands, hunched slightly like a stalking cat, ready to strike. “Where the _hell_ is he?!”

Both men launch forward, like rams in rut, the second grabbing Charles, hauling him sideways by his vest. The movement distracts Arthur - caught for a moment in the thought of some clumsy, unworthy hands on those beautiful beads, pulling the leather out of shape, forcefully grabbing at Charles’ chest and throwing him around like a side of meat - and then he catches a fist with his face.

“Fuck-” Pain spikes in his cheek. He stumbles backwards, hat falling off. Barely manages to duck the first man’s next punch, shifting his weight back beneath him to scramble upright and hit back. Another punch hits his forearm, fielded away to knock the man off balance, push past his guard. Arthur growls his frustration, snaps forward. Crashes his fist into the man’s jaw, knuckles crunching on the wall of his teeth beneath his skin.

At the edge of his vision, Charles grapples with the second man, fierce, dwarfing his opponent in size and strength, like a bear fighting a badger. He can hear Charles’ breathing, grunting with every punch, and Arthur presses onto his front foot, connects with the other side of the man’s face, brutal with adrenaline, with knowing Charles is beside him.

Eyes on him, like that night of the train robbery. Heavy, panting in his abdomen.

Arthur punches again. The man’s head snaps back, losing the air in his lungs. Blood bubbles between his teeth. He staggers. Arthur’s fist connects again, and he growls with effort, finally toppling the man like a ninepin, his well-groomed head thudding into the earth as he falls.

Across from him, Charles roars, and hurls his own bloodied dance partner by the scruff of his neck, throwing him clattering to the ground like a sack of potatoes, like he’s nothing at all. Dirt plumes where he lands. Another snarl and Charles rounds on him, a wolf eyeing the still-pulsing jugular of its fresh kill, picking the man’s head up to let it crash back down again, ensuring he won’t get up any time soon. Arthur stares, transfixed, caught in the flex of Charles’ muscles as he stands, the ferocity twisting his mouth.

As he watches, Charles presses his boot to the man’s neck. “You stay there,” he spits, just a rumble in his chest like an earthquake, dangerous and electric in Arthur’s bones, and as he drags his eyes up to his face, Arthur has to remind himself to breathe the air the man beneath his boot cannot.

He swallows, thick, dry-mouthed. Charles watches him as he clumsily looks for his hat, and dusts it off before replacing it on his head, a little less lost with that familiar piece of armour to shield his eyes. The man on the ground writhes, kicking his heels in the dirt and whimpering, struggling uselessly beneath thigh muscles like great monadnocks, immovable as tree trunks.

For one delirious second, Arthur wishes it was him choking underneath Charles.

“Now,” Arthur says, voice somewhere in his gut. As he approaches, Charles bows away, sharing his carrion with Arthur’s hungry muzzle. He eyes the downed man, falling on him to fix his hand to his throat. Squeezes, far harder than he should, vicious. Appetite whetted. “Where’s Trelawny?”

“I d-don’t know nothing!”

Arthur snarls, smashes the man back to the ground, feeling the impact right up to his shoulder. “Tell me!”

The man gurgles, spitting “You go to hell!” slick around his bloodied teeth, his eyes wide in his head. Arthur punches him.

“Now!” he roars, fist connecting again - “you son of a bitch-” - then again - “where is he?!”

Dimly, he’s aware of Charles watching him, circling in his tension, like an agitated cat. It’s been an age since the day with the poachers on the plains, the last time they saw each other so aggressive, overflowing with violent emotion. The adrenaline then had tipped into something much deeper, and as Arthur’s knuckles split with the force of his punches, the feeling stirs much the same, thick at the base of his spine. Charles’ eyes on him feel magnetic. Voyeuristic.

Would he be admiring the view? Sloping down the tension and flexion of Arthur’s biceps, the might in his shoulders, the meat of his thighs, straddling the flailing man beneath him. Is he feeling the same sick seductive thrill as Arthur is, knowing his violence has an audience?

“For Christ’s- Christ’s s-sake,” the man gasps, mouth open and grabbing for air like a fish on land, slurring. “They took him- To, ah...a cabin. O-Over by the cornfields.”

“There’s a lotta fuckin’ cornfields in this state, partner,” Arthur says, hissed between his teeth. “Whole cousin-fuckin’ county’s full of cornfields!” His fist clenches, knuckles white and bloody, and the man whines, desperate.

“South,” he says, gestures with one limp arm. Legs kick between Arthur’s. “Down. Hah. Down the path there. Near...Braith- Braithwaite Manor.”

“There now.” Arthur grimaces, leering, dangerous like an alligator. Grabs a handful of the man’s hair and yanks up, smashing his head into the earth with such force that all the air leaves him. His eyes roll shut into his head, and he doesn’t move again. “Thank you kindly.”

For a moment when he stands, Charles just looks at him. His gaze flicks to the raw skin on Arthur’s knuckles, then back up to his eyes, beneath the shadow of his hat. A bruise is swelling on his cheek already.

He clears his throat. The tension is heady like the heat, despite the shaded spot beneath the trees, leaves rustling with quieted birds high in the canopy. Flexing his fingers by his sides, Charles touches his hands together, rubbing his worn knuckles in a very rare display of discomposure. He has tells, the same as anyone, and Arthur feels a small pang of elation that he can recognise them. That he’s allowed to see them at all. 

“You uh… You ever feel like doin’ that to Micah,” Arthur says, nodding at the unconscious heap on the ground. Huffing, he smiles, hesitant, only committing to his deflective humour when Charles smiles too, straightening out the collar of his shirt where the man had grabbed it.

“Think Dutch’d kick me out if I did?”

“Pff, if he did, I’d quit. Micah gettin’ his ass kicked is a service to humankind.”

They chuckle, and Arthur clasps Charles’ bicep for a second as they turn away from the meagre campsite, back towards the horses, only dropping his hand after he squeezes, as if to memorise the weight of Charles’ arm through his shirt. Silent but reassuring, a small show of praise. It takes a moment, but Charles follows after him, returning to the horses and mounting up once more.

“I think there’s a way around,” Charles says, patting Taima’s neck as he gathers his reins, coaxing her up away from the summer grass she’s been happily snacking on while the humans stirred up some familiar trouble. “So we don’t have to go through the Braithwaite place.”

Arthur hums. “Mhm. I’ve spent enough time there.” And still more to come, with the jobs Dutch asked him to see to. Hopefully he’ll have time in the afternoon, and be able to get back before it’s late. Maybe catch Charles with his harmonica again. “After you, then.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The corn only seems to get denser as he weaves through the labyrinth, eyes bleary, the glimpses of daylight on either side narrowing as if the world itself is falling inwards, trying to suffocate him with dust and dry tassels, silk and the sheathed blades of leaves.  
> And then, the world tips over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few heads up here: i've drawn out what we see in game during this mission to be much less...simple. strangulation is absolutely terrifying. it's a very-often-fatal, horrifying form of physical assault that can lead to death in minutes, and have catastrophic consequences on those who survive, physically and otherwise.
> 
> in game, it's a mostly insignificant moment within the context of a firefight, which is cool. here, i've tried to give the situation a little more realism, and show the psychological effects of that as i thought they'd be with regard to arthur, a character i read as having suffered greatly in his past, and who understandably struggles with his mental health as an adult - with anxiety in particular, and likely depression too - in a world and living a life that doesn't afford much understanding and support of those issues. it's something i think charles deals with too, so i've tried to show that in this scene, and show the assault on arthur more as the horrific thing it truly would be outside a video game, rather than something he could more easily brush off.
> 
> i've tagged everything i can think to tag, but i do describe the strangulation itself, the effects, and the panic attack that comes afterwards, so please take care ♥

_Tenderly—be not impatient,_

_(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,_

_Strong is your hold O love.)_

  


The horses settle into an easy canter, southeast following the road that bypasses Rhodes. In the distance, a dark avenue of trees marks the entrance to the Braithwaites’ property, a grand colonnade to a departed era and its decaying monarchy. From far away, the bowed trees remind Arthur of great ribs curling out from the red earth, an archway of bones.

“You okay?”

Looking up, Arthur meets Charles’ eyes, nudging Magpie to keep pace with Taima. “I’m good. You?”

“Sure.”

Charles nods just once, refocusing on the track ahead. “What do you think they want with Trelawny?”

“Could be any one of a hundred things,” Arthur says, matter-of-fact. “Just depends if any of ‘em involve us.”

“You think he’ll talk?”

“‘Course. Talk’s what he does best.” He sighs, lips pressed together. “He’d sell his own sister to save a train fare. Reckon he don’t know how _not_ to talk.”

It’s not that he dislikes Trelawny. Not at all. The man has an odd sort of charm about him, and he is a born magician, conjuring schemes as easily as Hosea. But Arthur doesn’t _know_ him, not truly. He doubts anyone does. His pinstripes and puff ties, his moustache wax and top hat, the way he uses words; it reminds Arthur of the bright spots of a venomous frog, armouring itself in colour, making itself visible to ward danger away. The problem with Trelawny, is Arthur’s not sure whether that’s the point, and he’s fallen for some kind of trick by believing it. He can’t read him without doubting the very words themselves, and it sits like suspicion in him, uncertain and niggling like a toothache. 

The road curves gently to the south, skirting clumps of trees, heat haze shimmering above the grass. Taima’s hooves kick up dirt the colour of firelit embers, leaving a brown sediment in Magpie’s coat, hot and dusty. Any sweat on Arthur’s shirt from the fight dries almost instantly in the heat, high sun shining off the clips on his suspenders, bright enough to blind when the light catches just so.

“He’s got his uses, though, I guess.”

“Mm.”

They ride on, looping to the east to avoid Braithwaite land, and eventually crest the slight hill overlooking the cluttered battlefield south of Rhodes, naked trees like solemn statues, stripped of all but their strength to stand. It’s an odd sort of landmark. Ravens watch from the bald stumps, though the bones littering the field are ancient now, dry and bleached by decades of sun. A museum exhibit, and a graveyard too, without the formality of headstones.

Again they cut away, and follow the path through denser woodland. The air is still, hotter under cover and swimming with clouds of midges, the horses flicking their tails up over their flanks to shoo the flies. Despite the roaring glare of the sun. Arthur’s grateful when they finally emerge from the trees to fresh air, land spread out before them in jewel shades of green and yellow, grass and corn. They lope together between the fields, tobacco plants on their left, and golden maize on the right, broken only by the occasional tree, some simple fencing.

“Where now?”

Charles scans as they ride. “Looks like a shack over there,” he says, and collects his reins in one hand to point at a spot in the distance.

“Hm. Groundskeeper’s cabin, maybe?”

“Slave quarters,” Charles says. Then adds, “Once.”

Arthur sets his teeth together, vaguely disappointed in his own ignorance. “Right. Most likely.” He sighs noisily, and they head towards the shack, Arthur mumbling under his breath, “I hate this place.” The scenery may have grown on him, but the same can’t be said for the rest of Lemoyne.

Braithwaite Manor is visible in the distance across the fields, gaudy even from afar, like an old castle in a storybook, lived in by some hideous stepmother and her brood of ill-advised children. It lurks on the hazy horizon, and Arthur absently hopes they’re far enough away to avoid attention. Even Hosea would be hard-pressed to spin a sufficiently convincing tale to get them out of whatever mess they’ve wandered into after Trelawny.

As they dismount, just a short distance away, the shack door slams open. “Get out there, c’mon boy.” Two men in fancy hats, of all things, shove their way past the door, manhandling a limp Trelawny between them, bloodied, head lolling on his neck like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Behind them, another man brings up the rear, eyeing Trelawny like a vulture covets a corpse. They haul him across the boards, down the steps into the dirt, Trelawny’s knees scraping along the ground, getting thrown around like a ragdoll.

“Funny thing,” one of the men says, smartly dressed just like the two outside Rhodes. He grasps a handful of Trelawny’s dark hair, tipping his neck back, revealing a patchwork of bruises and cuts across his face. His hands are bound. “After that shack, this’ll be remembered like a good time.”

The others laugh, one’s hand fondling Trelawny’s slack jaw. “Get your fill, boy.”

Charles draws first, Arthur on his shoulder, stalking towards the group and taking aim. “Put the man down, gentlemen,” Arthur says, feeling a moment of smug delight at the shock that dawns as the men turn to face them, silent save for the two clicks of Arthur cocking his revolver .

Instantly, the first man runs, dropping Trelawny and taking off across the fields. The one trailing in the doorway bursts into a clumsy gallop, hot on his heels. Arthur snorts, watching him stumble over his own feet in his haste.

Gaze flicking between the two of them, the second man glances after his friends. “I’d run,” Arthur growls, and the man does, casts Trelawny off him like a stain and sprints, losing his hat as he wheels down the hill.

Trelawny collapses with a grunt of pain, curled in the sparse grass. “That all of them?” Arthur asks, falling forward to help, propping him up on the ground.

“I...I think so.”

“I got him, go,” Arthur says, nodding at Charles, who takes off after the two men, leaving Trelawny in Arthur’s hands, cautiously helping him sit up. His feet are bound too, clothes dishevelled and bloody, buttons torn from his once-white shirt.

“You’re alive then?”

“Allegedly,” Trelawny manages, voice tight. He looks up at Arthur with obvious surprise, relief in his expression despite how painful it is to keep his head up. His fingers slip clumsily on his wrist bindings, having rubbed his skin raw.

“Don’t worry, those fellers won’t be for much longer.”

Arthur cuts the tied rope with his knife, and Trelawny flaps at him as soon as his hands are free, “Go, Arthur, I can- Go find them.” A nod, and Arthur leaves him the knife, hurrying down the hill to chase Charles, unholstering his revolver once more.

“They’re trying to hide in the fields!” Charles calls as soon as Arthur meets him, stalking the aisle between corn plots, sawn-off shotgun ready. Arthur nods and takes the other side, eyes prying through the fields, scanning for movement.

“Better find ‘em quick,” he mumbles, “Coulda told ‘em anything.”

Charles shushes him across the row. They both pause, listening.

A few crows startle to his left, rustling as they break into flight, and Arthur hares after them, skidding to a stop on tilled soil. Hammer cocked, he catches one of the men running. Shoots, hits his back. The man sprawls forward, and meets Charles running at the other end of the corn row, loses the back of his head to the shotgun.

A look is shared between them from across the field, and then they’re moving again, covering ground on opposite sides. Who knew maize could be such a maze, Arthur muses.

Huffing at his own brilliant wordplay, he makes a mental note to tell Charles that joke. Later. When they’re not shooting bounty hunters in a cornfield game of cat and mouse.

The sound of wings catches his attention, and Charles shouts from somewhere far behind him, “Birds, behind! Your right!” Arthur whirls around. A red coat flies through the sea of gold and green, and Arthur chases, corn stalks sharp and whiplike as he brushes past. He gains with every stride. Fans the hammer. Twice, thrice, the man barrelling out of the field to fall lifeless in the dirt, bleeding through the red in his coat.

“Arthur?”

“Yeah,” he pants. “Got one more.”

“There’s something on the ground here.”

Skipping a few steps to hurry, Arthur follows the sound of Charles’ voice, reloading his revolver as he jogs, and finally spots him crouched in the centre of one of the rows, poking through a pile of belongings. “Y’okay?”

“He’s dumped his gear,” Charles says, voice tight, just like at the caravan. He prods an empty holster, a worn bandolier. “Can’t have gone far, let’s keep looking.”

Arthur hums his agreement, and takes the opposite side, prowling along the edges of the fields, finger anxious on his trigger guard, knuckles still itching from the fight before. It’s a jungle of corn crops, impenetrable with just the dust let alone the plants themselves, a choking red mist like swarms of flies. The stalks whisper in his ears, brushing at his face and arms like clawed fingers, tangling their roots around his feet in the furrows of soil.

He wipes his face on his shirt, and stares for a moment at the sky far above, calmed by the open blue. The surroundings blur together in the heat, no points to anchor him amidst the endless fields. 

“Keep looking, Arthur!” Charles voice comes from somewhere unknown, muffled and lost in the shifting walls, far further away than Arthur wants him. The corn only seems to get denser as he weaves through the labyrinth, eyes bleary, the glimpses of daylight on either side narrowing as if the world itself is falling inwards, trying to suffocate him with dust and dry tassels, silk and the sheathed blades of leaves.

And then, the world tips over.

Something closes around Arthur’s neck. He’s violently jerked off his feet, caving in backwards like a collapsing sinkhole, landing heavily on his shoulders. His hands at once fly to his throat, clawing at the rope around it and losing all his breath, squeezed out of him drop by drop. Lead is left in his lungs, burning as he tries uselessly to gasp, sucking on nothing but dust and his own saliva, dazzling sunlight all he can see.

He gropes for Charles’ name. Tries to scream, to yell, anything, and nothing sounds. The ligature chokes his leaping pulse and pulls him backwards across the ground, pounding in his ears, wringing the air from his empty throat like water from a sponge. 

Panic engulfs him at once. Like he’s doused in gasoline and someone has lit a match, writhing, throwing his weight, kicking, fighting- And only wrenched harder by someone unseen, hauled through the cornfield with such ferocity he’s sure his head will tear off at the neck, ripped in two.

The pain is blinding, clouding in his head. Heels rake through the dirt, snapping the shanks of his spurs, the friction tearing his shirt, pulling his suspenders. And still he can’t make a sound. Not even to _choke_.

So, this is how he dies.

He’d always thought it would be a bullet, or several. Bloody and grisly. Strange how fate works.

Charles was fields away last he heard. And there’s no way Arthur can even call for him. Lost and losing more with every inch. Despite the panic, all he can think is how he’ll never see Charles again. Never get to trace the spider scars on his face, or hunt down that Army captain paying drifters to kill the bison. Ride alongside him again. Hear him laugh.

He’s dying in silence.

Every second takes an hour, ages, the life being slowly, systematically crushed out of him, throat constricted until his head feels like it’s going to pop, eyelids fluttering in spasm as blood vessels start to burst across his face. The panic reaches fever pitch, fear screaming through his terrified body like the blood blocked in his brain without oxygen, swelling, bubbling from his nose in a slick red spurt.

Desperate fingernails bend and break. Skin rips around the rope. What strength he has seeps from every panicking muscle with each second he continues to struggle, until his legs and hands start to go slack, losing their fight despite how he screams at them to keep moving, unable to find them in the swallowing numbness.

He’s wrenched even further backwards, limp knees splayed out like broken saplings, devoid of any ability to fight back, to survive. The pressure in his head seems to suffocate his eye sockets like his eyeballs will explode, crushing the last tunnel of his vision until he can’t see at all despite wide open and darting eyes. That last link to the world around him is severed, every sense smothered in a black nothingness, and like swaddling a newborn it somehow envelops him in dark, muffled comfort, soothing away his panic as he sinks, slips into blessed unconsciousness.

Arthur tries once more to find Charles’ name, sure he can hear it in his own voice, one final plea to the darkness before it consumes him; and he lets go.

“You have my friend.”

“He ain’t your _friend_.” Then, “Let me take him.”

Words drift. Clouds in high wind. If this is death, it’s more peaceful than he’d feared. And Charles’ voice is there too.

“I’ll give ya a share of the bounty, how’s that? Boy’s worth a purty li’l sum. More’n the meat on him.”

His heels are shunted another inch across the ground.

“Lemme take him in. You don’t want him. Let’s split the earnin’s-”

“Oh be _quiet_.”

The rope suddenly gives.

Colour floods back to him, air filling his lungs in a desperate gush. He drinks it rasping past his throat, casting the noose away and curling over on himself, feeling spreading back through his body like water bursting past a dam, pain and panic sloshing with it.

Heaving on the thick air, he retches, vomits a mouthful of bile from his stomach in the dirt, mouth wet with the blood from his nose as he coughs and gasps, throat like sandpaper. Another man swims into his field of view, blurred at the edges, black and brown and red.

His mouth is moving, but Arthur’s ears are full of thunder, booming like cannon fire, vision smudged and swirling. Even the blankness of oblivion had Charles’ voice within it. He can’t be dead then. This must be living. Harsh and cruel.

“Easy,” Charles is saying, sat in the soil and sand beside him, “Easy, I’ve got you.”

Arthur chokes for air, desperate, searching for him, fingers scraping in the dirt. The panic spikes and catches like a wildfire in dry grass, just as realisation starts to creep back to him, and suddenly he’s panting, crying out on air that seems devoid of oxygen, dust lining his screaming throat. “Arthur- Arthur, look at me-”

Charles’ hand squeezes his shoulder, painful where he’d hit the ground moments before, and it’s intended to be comforting- It’s Charles- Charles would never- 

Something tiny and drowning and rational inside him knows it’s supposed to reassuring, to be gentle, but Arthur flinches backwards so violently it’s as if he’s been burned, with such a pathetic, terrified noise that Charles recoils instantly, shocked into full retreat.

The harsh whimper tangles up in Arthur’s throat and breaks as he chokes for breath, a wretched, grating sound, like rusted metal, and he kicks himself away from Charles, heels slipping in the earth, pleading for an escape he can’t find.

Horror hits Charles like a mallet, ashamed that for a few moments he’s only able to stare. Ashen and shaking, Arthur’s hands and knees come up around his chest, shielding himself from an invisible pain, ribcage heaving in his struggle to find air, every laboured breath groaning like a dying animal. 

Understanding seeps in after the shock, cold and terrifying, because as unfamiliar as it is to see Arthur so panicked, Charles recognises his reaction. Knows it. Intimately.

It’s a deep and weeping fissure in him, buried beneath decades of cave-ins. Fear and pain, childhood-made, broken glass and thrown plates, a jangling belt with leather like a whip, a fist-sized dent in the wall. He would squeeze himself behind furniture, hiding with the irrational terror that his heartbeat is loud enough to hear and will give him away, that or the hitch in his breath as he forces back sobs, teeth biting into his own fist, trying to drown the evidence of any tears he’s not supposed to shed.

Wounds that never quite healed, twisted into scar tissue. Ugly. Just as painful as they were when made.

Arthur has plenty of scars. They both do. This one has been ripped open so violently Charles wants to sob, to trace the roots back to their source and choke the life out of whatever would _dare_ to cause Arthur so deep and hidden an injury.

Arthur’s wheezing like he’s a fox trapped in a snare, eyes wild and blistered red, unseeing. His hands hang curled in front of him, shoulders hunched up as if braced to be hit, and panting so hard he violently retches again, doubling over his own knees. Childlike. Making himself small.

It’s- It’s _horrific_. And Charles can only watch, useless, stricken with his own agony as panic devours Arthur and he’s powerless to help, to fix- To do anything but kneel in the dirt and feel his heart break.

“Arthur, it’s me,” he says, wincing at how his voice shakes. “It’s just me- It’s Charles. You’re okay.” He holds his own hands up, palms showing, shifts minutely forward. “You’re okay, I’m-” Charles swallows, the words tight with emotion, fury still clenching inside him knowing such fear lives in Arthur, a thunderstorm of noise and lightning, painful in his chest. He reins himself in. “I’m not gonna hurt you. It’s just me, you’re okay.”

From behind his bent knees, Arthur’s eyes squeeze shut and then open, disjointed, blinking away some unseen terror, flitting around him like clouds of flies. He jerks his head, plagued by the swarm, and so desperate for air, every groaning snatch of breath just requiring another, and another, ratcheting his panic to a peak. Tears stream down his cheeks, white streaks in the layer of dust on his skin.

His name is said again, low but clear, and Arthur’ eyes slink up to him, swimming in tears but devoid of recognition, Arthur missing from behind them, retreated somewhere deep inside himself. But it’s enough, and Charles holds his gaze firm, saying softer now, “It’s me. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Charles shifts another inch closer, noticing the tense in Arthur’s shoulders, a reflex that’s worn in like old leather. “Arthur, you need to breathe,” he says, and shows Arthur his empty palms, outstretched to him. “Take my hand. It’s just me.”

Fixed on Charles’ eyes, Arthur blinks, rapid, breathless. His hand shakes, and he can’t unclench his fingers by himself, despite how he clearly tries. So much effort, knuckles flexing, disjointed. A subtle movement, but it makes Charles’ heart hurt even more.

He leans closer, hesitating before touching Arthur’s hand. There’s a hitch in his hyperventilating, but Arthur doesn’t pull away, too lost to be able to fight. Gentle as he can be, Charles pries his fingers open, one at a time, replacing the space with his own hand, so he can be Arthur’s anchor, pressing warmth into his palm. He squeezes, enveloping the hand in his, muscles in Arthur’s arms tight and jumping. “There, I’m here. Breathe with me,” Charles says, emphasising his own breaths, in and out.

Arthur’s eyes dart, and the jump in his breath makes him gag again, choking on nothing, drool spat to his side. It forces him to breathe in reflex, lungs taking air before the vice of panic can tighten again, enough to disrupt the runaway rhythm. Just enough.

“Breathe,” Charles says again, closer to Arthur now, guiding him in each breath. In through his nose, out through his mouth. In, out.

Arthur tries. Tries so _hard_ , shaking on every exhale. Blood bubbles under his nose, thick in the stubble above his lip, but he focuses on Charles with everything he has, wild eyes on his sunlit features, gilt in gold.

Every muscle twitches in some broken staccato rhythm, and he stares at Charles’ eyes like a hypnotised rabbit, mouth hanging open and dry, nose running. Charles murmurs again, “I’ve got you,” and hesitates before gently touching Arthur’s shoulder. There’s no reaction, no flinch of fear, so Charles rests his hand down, squeezing the tiniest squeeze, careful not to push any higher and disturb the angry ring around Arthur’s neck, exposed by his tousled shirt, cotton split open across his clavicle like the skin peeling off a peach.

He comes down, slow and lethargic. The sun is unrelenting on them both, a weary peace settling over the cornfield as Arthur’s breathing quiets, dying to a regular rasp, echoed by the rustling of the corn stalks all around them, a strange cocoon. 

Awareness resurfaces as the minutes tick by. It emerges from a mire, thick and soupy, colour and sound trickling back to him like drops from a faucet. His legs fall heavily to the ground, jeans torn and knees caked in dust from where he’d struggled, scraped through the dirt. Breath noisy, but evening out more with every exhale, Arthur starts to slump, and realise his surroundings once again, the heat of the afternoon, the golden corn, the corpse of his attacker not a few feet behind him, a throwing knife through his left eye. And Charles, holding him together, afraid to let him go.

“Ch… Charles.”

“Arthur,” Charles replies, swallowing his hurt at the sound of Arthur’s voice, if it can even be called a voice at all. It’s nothing but a dry scraping sound, like his throat has been ripped apart and shambolically put back together, the broken bones of what it should be, torn shreds. Like forcefully splitting a seam.

Shame wells in Arthur’s expression as the life in his eyes returns, and Charles isn’t entirely sure whether it’s an improvement over the blank emptiness of his panic attack or not, rubbing his thumb over Arthur’s shoulder all the more insistently, trying to stop his mind from bolting again. “You’re okay. Don’t think. It’s just me.”

“Charles.”

“Just me. I’ve got you.”

“Thought… Thought I was-” 

The rasp in his throat cracks and he has to cough, a wheezing sort of sound, like someone’s torturing a concertina. He sniffs then, bubbling wet, pain starting to bleed back from where adrenaline had smothered it, aching in every inch of him. It feels like he’s been incompetently hanged, or survived a decapitation attempt made with a blunt butter knife. “Thought...that was it.”

“Shh. Not yet, cowboy. You’re okay, just stay with me.”

Intending to wipe his mouth, wet with tears and blood and saliva, Arthur realises the hand not scrunched in the dirt beside him is caught by something, stuck on his collapsed thigh, not responding to his desire to move. Dimly, he looks down at it, and realises it’s being held tight by Charles’ other hand. Their fingers are interlinked. When exactly that happened, he can’t tell, staring at their joined hands for a long silent moment before he squeezes, experimental, and Charles does the same in return.

“I’ve got you,” Charles says again, soft as his voice can be. The hand on his shoulder is noticed too, and Arthur leans slightly into it for just a moment, almost close enough for Charles to stroke his cheek, brush back his hair.

“You sh-shoulda...took the m-money,” he manages, stammering with the stale dryness of week-old cake, and even less of the structural integrity, a struggling stage-whisper all that comes from his voicebox, still shaky with fear. His head hangs, heavy, spit slick around his mouth. Tears drip off his jawline.

“I know,” Charles says, finding his eyes with a gentle, warm smile, his own fear hidden well behind it. “I’m a fool.”

Hand slow so as not to spook him, he carefully straightens Arthur’s collar, replacing it properly on his frame. A button has been torn away, leaving a swathe of Arthur’s pectoral and clavicle on show, his chest hair damp with sweat and skin red raw with clawing fingernail tracks, ripped into his own collarbones. Charles has to tear his gaze away so as not to stare, swallowing another burst of anger, and shame. It’s not right to look at Arthur’s chest, not when it was bared against his will by such a violent act. Hurt pulls in his heart. He looks back up at Arthur’s eyes.

They’re both painfully bloodshot, more red than blue, like someone has smashed a tomato behind both of his irises. His cheeks too are spattered with burst blood vessels, tiny spider haemorrhages across his nose, in the circles under his eyes.

Folded in the turned-up cuff of his shirt, Charles has a handkerchief, waiting for Arthur’s silent permission before he carefully wipes his face, watching the way his eyelashes flutter shut in sheer exhaustion. Charles dabs the blood congealed in his stubble, dries his tears, his mouth, so gentle it’s almost reverent.

“You got any water?”

“Mm.”

Fingers trembling, Arthur fumbles for his satchel, and finds it isn’t where it should be, leather strap having snapped as he was pulled backwards. Panic pangs again, but Charles keeps him grounded, pointing it out a short distance away, left where it fell. He fetches it, and helps him take a drink from his canteen, hand on his to keep him steady, and doesn’t pull away when Arthur’s finished, just sitting for a moment, taking both of Arthur’s hands in his.

They sit while the shaking stops. Charles keeps his anxious hands safe, a silent comfort, one tangible connection to the real and present world. His breathing is a rhythm Arthur can follow, his touch a reminder of what he can feel and sense around him, pulling him out of whatever part of himself he’d got stuck in, building his faith in reality back up just by being _there_.

“Sometimes, I-” Charles hesitates. Another tiny tell, uncommon and unsure. “I like to listen. And feel. It...stops me getting lost as easy.”

Arthur tilts his head, sluggish, the movement hurting his neck. “I...can hear the corn,” Charles says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. It’s still not easy to be so open, even though it’s Arthur, and only Arthur would ever hear him speak so plainly, but seeing him so...violated, when he had no control over it; he can only imagine what Arthur’s feeling. So he bares some of himself, if only so that Arthur doesn’t feel as naked. “The leaves rustling, the tassels on top.”

A soft breath, and Arthur seems to concentrate, shutting his eyes to listen. “There’s the sounds of birds, around us, above us,” Charles says. “Cawing crows, singing waxwings, larks, shrikes and warblers. They peck at the tilled soil, swoop through the fields.”

Nodding just slightly, Arthur takes a deeper breath. He can hear them. Can hear insects, the far off brush of a breeze through trees, the low honey of Charles’ voice.

“I can feel...the heat of today,” Charles continues, watching the steady rise and fall of Arthur’s chest. “The dust, the soft earth. An ache in my knees, because I’m not so young anymore.”

A huff, Arthur’s lips pull up at the corner. “Sweat on my neck, tied hair on my back, brushing my face. Your hands in mine.” Arthur’s eyes open, pupils constricting in the bright light. “Warm, strong, rough-skinned, but it’s not a bad thing. Trembling a little.”

Charles mimics his huff, a rare self-conscious tip of his chin down to his chest. “You’re here in this moment with me.”

When he looks up again, Arthur is holding his gaze, and despite the injuries he is radiantly beautiful, with such a small and grateful expression that it makes Charles heart hurt again. “It helps me to refocus,” he says, quiet, barely louder than the whispering corn stalks. “To not feel so...overwhelmed.”

Arthur squeezes his hands, both at once, and Charles understands the silent thank you, noting that Arthur’s breathing has returned to normal, if noisier than usual. Calm. Relaxed, as if he’s sitting in an armchair, not on the ground in a cornfield after fighting for his life.

“Oh. Here.” Noticing how blonde his hair looks in the sunlight, Charles reaches back across the dirt, several feet along the twin drag marks of Arthur’s heels, and picks up the hat lying there in the furrows, setting it gently back on Arthur’s head. With a slight frown, he adjusts the battered leather, trying to recapture the same angle Arthur prefers.

“Thanks,” Arthur says, and holds his gaze, lips swollen and sluggish as he tries to smile. It hangs between them for a moment longer, only one simple word, but voicing a much deeper sentiment than just thanks.

A shot rings out. The dirt explodes not six feet from them. 

“Sniper!”

Charles is on his feet in half a second, body between Arthur and the direction of the shooter, trying to see over the wall of corn. Something glints in the hayloft of the distant building, and he ducks back down. “It’s coming from the barn,” he says, all the softness gone from his voice. “There must be more of them.”

Arthur drags his hand across his mouth, grunting as his calm is thoroughly shattered. His breath picks up again, hoarse and splintered, increasing when he tries to clamber to his feet, ungainly like a foal on its new legs. “Hey-” Charles props his shoulders up, like a one-armed hug, trying to find his eyes, squeezed up in pain. “I can deal with them. Get back to Trelawny.”

“Nah...nah,” Arthur rasps, clinging to Charles’ forearm as he finds his balance. His shoulders crunch when he stretches, tries to roll the tension out while fumbling to reattach his suspender clips. “S’okay. M’okay.”

Stooping to pick up his discarded revolver, lost in the struggle, Arthur checks the sights, blinking through the dizziness swirling in his head as his blood pressure tries to catch up. “C’mon.” Charles hesitates, eyeing him, and Arthur can hear the protest he doesn’t voice, forcing his legs into movement. Stubborn.

Back through the dust, the corn stalks brush their skin as they push past, the sun directly overhead and furnace-hot. It stings the burn across Arthur’s neck like a knockout punch, unsympathetic as they hurry through the fields, Arthur clumsy on wobbling legs.

Another shot is aimed at them, severing stalks, leaving a pothole in the ground. Breaking into a run, they dart out from the cover of the corn and sprint, Arthur all but collapsing behind an outbuilding in front of the barn, back against the clapboard wall with Charles beside him, covering the opposite side.

Splintering into the wood, bullets hit the shed, and Arthur has to try several times to properly aim, vision still swimming. There’s another man outside the barn, shooting from the decking. Arthur takes aim, misses by a good foot. “Shit-” The man peeks out of cover, and Charles’ revolver shot floors him.

“You still okay?”

“Just- _Dandy_!” Arthur says, forcing the words, like cutting boards with a rusty hacksaw.

“Sniper’s in the hayloft,” Charles shouts back over the gunfire, and Arthur takes aim again, hissing as the recoil kicks all the way up from his wrist to his shoulder, arms weak. His shot misses, thudding into the siding, and the man ducks out of sight before Charles can fire.

“He’s backing off inside!”

“Shit,” Arthur grunts, forcing himself into a lumbering run, chasing Charles up the steps to the barn building. He heaves his breath, skirting around the central platform where hoppers and grain chutes span the storeys, crowding the rafters.

Charles is ahead, colliding with the sniper as he descends from the hayloft with a dull thud. They tussle, and Charles throws the man to the floor with a roar of effort, loose hair whipped around him like the mane of a lion. Stumbling to a stop, Arthur is close enough to see the flecks of blood that spatter across Charles’ vest, holding the man down with one foot on his chest, sawn-off dispatching him with one final bang.

“Good,” Charles says, holstering his shotgun, as if it’s nothing to shoot off a man’s head. Sadly, Arthur supposes it isn’t. Just a regular day. “Should be the last of them.”

He nods, panting, blinking the blur from his head. “Let’s…” Waves his hand. “Get Trelawny.”

Patting his back, Charles walks with him, palm lingering above Arthur’s waistline for a second longer than strictly proper, the pale blue of his shirt stained heavily with grass and dirt, burned into the fabric by friction. He sighs heavily as they emerge into the heat once more, and Arthur tilts his head at him, rasps, “Y’alright?”

“Me? Of course,” Charles says, squinting against the glare. They head back between the cornfields, startling crows from between the plants, the littered bodies baking in the midday sun, flies already swarming. “Just...never goes easy, does it?”

“Sure don’t.”

Coughing again, Arthur spits into the dirt, dragging his hand over his mouth and wincing when he pulls at the dry blood in his stubble. He must be a sight.

Funny how a split second can tip whatever scales fate balances his life on so severely. And by funny, Arthur reckons he means it’s mostly terrifying. The sort of terror that comes from crippling uncertainty, like the black abyss of space, or the ocean, beauty and horror the two trees between which a hammock swings. Life and death. And him stuck in the middle, bobbing from one side to the other.

Ridiculous. His entire existence is ridiculous.

“Seems like we can’t catch a break,” Charles says, and Arthur grunts an agreeing sort of noise, noticing how Charles walks far slower than usual, so he can stay by his side as Arthur lumbers up the hill.

“Luck’s held...this long,” Arthur replies, barely more than a whisper, huffing at the raised eyebrow Charles gives him. _This is lucky?_ “Had worse.”

“Mm, that’s what scares me.”

Finally, they near the shack, forgotten atop the hill overlooking the fields. The sun pounds, the trees in the far distance hazy with the heat, emerald and glimmering. Trelawny is sitting on the front deck, like a retired farmer in his rocking chair. He waves to them as they approach. “Over here, dear boy!”

“Put y’feet up why don’t you,” Arthur says, voice so badly cracked it’s only audible to Charles walking next to him, an uneven wheeze like honking bellows.

Charles’ hand appears on his back again, just for a moment, fleeting as the passing birdsong, waxwings flitting from the few trees. It gathers up Arthur’s pulse like collecting a horse’s reins, hitching in his aching chest with the silent reassurance that Charles is _there_. There with him. Still by his side, even after everything. Most men would likely look at Arthur very differently after so much melodrama, but not Charles. Still acting like he’s...himself, despite that fact he doesn’t quite feel like it. 

“Mr Trelawny, you okay?” Charles calls, because Arthur can barely find even the shreds of his voice.

“Never finer!” Trelawny says, in the sing-song way of his. He looks about as battered as Arthur feels. 

His waistcoat is split open across his chest, fine shirt bloodied and streaked with dirt, shoulder seams ripped. Lank and dark across his bruised forehead, his hair is tousled like he’s just got out of bed, the black a stark contrast to the pale of his skin, the red and purple blotches on his face. “What about you Arthur, my boy? You look rather, uh…” He trails off, moustache twitching with the poorly hidden twist in his mouth. “Rather worse for wear. Even if I do say so myself.”

“M’fine,” Arthur grunts, like someone who is anything but fine, wheezing into his rumpled sleeve. “Who was- Th-Those fellers?”

They help Trelawny stand, Charles on his other side, steadying him as they walk slowly from the cabin, twin gasps of pain as they step down from the decking. “Bounty hunters,” Trelawny says. “Attached to Cole Stoudemire.”

Charles leads Taima around from where she and Magpie are grazing, content to enjoy the sweet summer grass away from all the chaos. “They weren’t looking for me, per se.”

“Hm.”

“What did you tell them?” Charles asks, without any malice. Never accusing, only sincere.

“Not much.”

They haul Trelawny up to sit behind Taima’s saddle, voice strained with effort as he tells them a brief version of the tale he’d spun, about being an intellectual from Oregon, which hadn’t been believed at all. “Seems you stirred up quite a hornet’s nest in Blackwater.”

“So I keep ha...hearin’,” Arthur says.

Charles lingers, watching Arthur. The way he does when he wants to say something, even if he’s going to say it without any words. “It might be best if I stay with you gentlemen for a while,” Trelawny says, uncertainty in his voice. “Can’t go back to the caravan now. I-I suppose you saw that.” Vulnerability is something Arthur’s never seen in Trelawny. He’s a magician without his cape, stripped of his finery. The same way Arthur feels without his hat and gunbelt, he supposes. Their own masks. Pieces of armour.

“Right,” Arthur rasps. “Prob’ly best.” He looks at Charles, and again is met by the same expression. Knowing. Charles stands at his full height, a few inches taller than a hunched and wobbling Arthur.

“You aren’t coming?” he asks, before Arthur’s even made the decision.

“I...got those jobs for...for Dutch.” His voice is agony, and he absently picks at the dried blood on his top lip, sharp as it pulls his stubble. Dust coats his boots, spurs broken, straps limp. “Get ‘im back s-safe,” he says, nodding gingerly at Trelawny. “We can uh...catch up later?”

Charles just looks at him, until Arthur drops his gaze, embarrassment in his clenched teeth, shame stirring in his gut again. There’s no judgement in Charles, there never is, but Arthur can’t help but feel...exposed, raw like an open wound, every nerve ending jangling like gaudy metal jewellery. Obvious and on display. Panic like that hasn’t overwhelmed him so badly in years. Of course it had to happen while Charles was with him.

He sighs. It’s lucky Charles was there. Despite the embarrassment, he’d be dead without him.

“John an’ Javier’re waitin’. Sean too.”

Charles voice is low, distant thunder. “You were just garroted, Arthur.”

“I’m _fine_ \- I just-”

Another moment of stand-off, and Arthur retreats first again, weary, shoulders hunched. He’d lashed out before. After Valentine. Frustration had tipped over, and he’d pushed Charles away in the argument. He doesn’t want to do that again. “I know,” he says, quiet, letting Charles see the guilty exhaustion in his face. Surrender. “If they wasn’t ah...already waitin’, I’d come wit’ you, but…I-I gotta-”

Charles chews his own lip, letting Arthur clear his throat as best he can, so much talking wearing on his already struggling vocal cords. “I’ll be f-fine. If… If I feel worse, I’ll...call it off,” he says.

“Yeah, and Uncle will have done all the laundry when we get back.”

“Ha.”

Taima’s hoof thuds impatiently in the dirt, tail swishing. She fidgets under her abnormal load, Trelawny holding the cantle of the saddle to keep steady, conspicuously not watching them, like a gossip trying to look like he’s doing anything but eavesdropping.

“Alright,” Charles says, in a tone that says it clearly isn’t, but he’s deciding not to push. “Come back safe. And be careful.” He briefly squeezes Arthur’s shoulder, holding his gaze for a long moment, eyes slipping down Arthur’s face, over his bruises, and lingering on his lips, parched and puffy. 

And then he turns, catching the mumbled “I’m always careful” before mounting Taima, soothing her with his palm on her neck.

Arthur waves, and watches them trot back the way they’d come earlier, eventually disappearing into the treeline. A sigh, and he readies and mounts Magpie, spending a moment just rubbing her neck with his broken nails, burying his nose in her black mane, dust thick in her coat. “C’mon girl,” he says eventually, picking himself up. “Day’s...not over yet.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’re we doin’, Charles?” he whispers, hoarse, like trying to force rocks through a tiny hole, almost impossible, but adamant the scraps of his voice are heard. “Us. This. What’re we doing?”

_Low hangs the moon—it rose late;_

_O it is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love._

  


One near-death experience was enough, thank you very much. Yet the universe decides the opposite, and Arthur’s chasing Arabian stallions across Scarlett Meadows by mid-afternoon, narrowly escaping with John and Javier’s lives as well as his own, a torrent of gunsmoke and galloping hooves and two grubby, grinning horse rustlers who are lucky not to bear the brunt of Arthur’s fraying patience.

It unravels entirely some time later, hidden amongst the moonshine in the back of a covered wagon, listening to Sean’s disarmingly clumsy brand of nonsense pattering on from the driver’s seat, leading them straight into the grounds of Caliga Hall like the wooden Greek horse into Troy. 

His life is ridiculous. And knowing that, his death is bound to be ridiculous too. Burnt alive amidst tobacco arson, lynched in a cornfield, scalped for a nonexistent $5000 horse.

Fuck, his neck hurts.

Everything is fire after that.

Flame engulfs the Gray estate. The sky itself seems to be burning, visible even from Clemens Point as the dark of night draws in, an orange maw on the horizon devouring the stars in smoke and dust.

Arthur and Sean thunder through the undergrowth, riding stolen draught horses bareback, the tug and trace of their carriage harnesses still attached over their sweating flanks. While Sean struts over, starts to regale the rest of the camp with the story - a wild tale of stealth and bottles of liquid fire - Arthur lingers behind, only Charles taking note of how he still struggles to dismount his Shire horse long after Sean, bent in on himself as if his body has given up taking its own weight.

Or taking the weight of the world along with it.

Charles rationalises the way his attention seems to follow Arthur with his own natural instinct to be alert. Aware. It’s only him being cautious when his eyes are drawn so often in his direction, and seem to find him no matter where he is. Just careful. Thorough.

It’s what he tells himself, but it isn’t true.

Whatever it is between him and Arthur, whatever has been building for...months now, he still hesitates putting words to it. As if giving it a name will make it lose some part of itself, some unknowable quality that makes it special. Knowing it, intimately, might somehow strip it of its nurturing roots, and he’ll have to watch it wither in the harsh light of exposure.

Charles has always tried to be certain. Even when his very place on the Earth seems random and chaotic and purposeless - and it still does - he has always tried to be sure of what he can, firm in his decisions and feelings. If he at least has control over how he reacts, then the crushing sense of estrangement that’s followed him since birth seems somehow less powerful.

Arthur, though. Arthur makes him feel lost, a pitching ship taking on water. And yet, a part of him has never felt so sure of anything before, as he feels when he’s with him. Lost, yes, but there isn’t any fear in it, drifting untethered but unafraid, as if losing direction has him touching freedom with his fingertips.

For a moment, in that cornfield, he’d seen Arthur’s life held in someone else’s hand. It had scared him more than anything had in a very long time, fear running down his spine like sickness, cold in his gut as if stabbed with an icepick. And the _panic_ in Arthur’s eyes, kicking away from him. Wild and waterlogged, drowning him from inside.

He’d gripped Charles’ hand so hard he can still feel it now. As if it was the only thing keeping him afloat.

Predictable, even so exhausted he can barely walk, Arthur crosses the camp to where Magpie is grazing, having returned hours before with Hosea and Sean’s gelding Ennis. He checks her over, as he always does, spending a second leaning heavily into her side, comforted by her habit of sniffing his back pockets, nudging her nose wherever a treat might be hiding. After a moment, and three mints, he says goodnight to her, and gingerly pulls each arm out of his suspenders, letting them hang loose around his hips.

None of the others still awake seem to notice him, much less ask how his day went.

His shirt is thrown across the chest by his bed, spattered with blood and ash and God knows what else, leaving him in his threadbare union suit, half-unbuttoned. It’s late, but he doesn’t get ready for bed, instead heading back to where the mares are grazing.

Trelawny is sitting up on his new bedroll, beside the medicine wagon, reading a book that’s leant on his knees. They’d arrived back safely, and despite many reassurances that he was “feeling absolutely peachy, thank you very much, my dear”, he’d been quiet all afternoon, borrowing some simple clothes and bedding, resting after the ordeal.

Arthur stops alongside, and briefly talks with him, miming tipping his hat though he isn’t wearing it, going through the motions of a friendly conversation before he takes his leave. He gently passes the grazing mares, heading uphill and sitting by the small scouts’ campfire, skin glowing in the flickering light, as it had in the afternoon sun.

Charles joins him in as long as it takes to raid the chuckwagon and cross the camp, excusing himself from Sean’s raucous celebration of burning down the local manor house, plus Hosea’s scathing impression of Matriarch Braithwaite, and hoping his leaving comes across as innocent rather than anything as desperate as it actually is. There’s no part of him that truly cares how he looks to the others, or what they think of him, but he’d never want to jeopardise their respect of Arthur, especially not with rumours and gossip.

“Never goes easy, does it,” he says, lingering just outside the circle of furs around the fire. Arthur’s shoulders slump at the sound of his voice, relieved.

“Sure don’t,” he croaks, and gestures for Charles to sit down.

His voice is still utterly ruined. Rasping and painful, as is his face, swollen with one punched bruise and raw around his neck, a chafing, choking noose cut into his throat. It’s started to turn purple at the edges, pinpricks like the Pleiades, the same pattern flecked over his cheeks, tiny bursts of colour.

Ugly, and agonising to look at, but still beautiful somehow, as only Arthur is.

Charles sits beside him on a cowhide blanket. Arthur’s head hangs, too heavy to hold up, the thin cotton of his underwear clinging across the expanse of his chest, dark hair pressed in swirls beneath the fabric. There’s still flakes of blood clinging in his stubble, and Charles longs to wipe it away, kiss the soreness from his lips.

“I know you aren’t,” Charles says, soft as down. “But...you okay?”

Arthur takes a rattling breath in with his chuckle, like there’s infection in his chest, and looks at Charles, infinitely comforted just by the sight of him. As the rope had dropped slack, Arthur had looked up at him like the shepherds must have gazed upon the archangel, adoring and terrified all at once. It’s much the same now if a far gentler version, softened by the lateness of the hour, the firelight licking at his wounds, exhaustion so familiar and constant it must sleep in Arthur’s bones even when he’s awake.

“Feel like...I been chewed up an’ spit out,” Arthur whispers, trying to force his voice to sound, grating and deep like the braying of a bull.

“You look like it too,” Charles says, gently nudging his shoulder into Arthur’s, and delights in the small, wan smile that appears on his face, like a crease in tissue paper. “You eaten anything?”

A minute shake of his head is all Arthur can manage, gesturing weakly to his throat. Too painful. He’d figured maybe he’d drink his weight in whiskey and crawl into bed for the next few days, sleep everything into nothing more than nightmares. The smell of burning tobacco is still in his head, caustic, only worsening the lingering dizziness, swirling behind his eyes.

“Good thing I brought this then,” Charles says, and passes over what he’d picked up from the chuckwagon - a bowl of peach segments with a soft cobbler crust, sprinkled with caramelised sugar. A makeshift dessert. More luxurious than anything Arthur usually eats. “Miss Gaski- Mm. Mary-Beth went into Rhodes today. Brought back some luxuries, so…”

Arthur tilts his head at him as he takes the bowl, asking a silent question. “Yeah, I made it. I don’t think Pearson’s ever seen a fruit. Even in a tin.”

He’s granted another small smile in reply, Arthur sectioning a piece of cobbler with his spoon. It hurts to swallow, but the dough is soggy from the fruit, and soft enough to melt in his mouth, peach syrup a relief on his throat. His eyes drift shut, and he sighs, content for the first time in hours, slowly working his way through his humble meal, enjoying the comfortable quiet.

There’s only the crackle of the fire around them, the sounds of the horses grazing, a natural barrier between them and the rest of the camp, cocooning them in a small moment of peace away from the world. “Thanks,” Arthur says, putting his bowl down when he’s finished, licking syrup from his lips. “A f-feller could...get used to this. You cookin’ for mm...me.”

Charles smiles in reflex, watching the weary droop of Arthur’s eyelids, lashes casting spider shadows on his cheeks. “Just don’t make a habit of nearly getting yourself killed. Please. I’m not sure I can take the stress.”

“No promises,” Arthur rasps, wheezing a weak cough. “S’a talent.”

Without stopping to overthink, he places his hand on top of Charles’, folding his fingers around it on Charles’ thigh, too tired to spare any energy for worrying about whether the gesture will be reciprocated. For a moment Charles simply stares at the join, having dreamt about it so many times and yet not knowing what should come next.

“Thank you,” Arthur says again, eyes downcast. “You...s-saved my life. It ain’t the best life, but…s’all I got, so... Thank you.”

Carefully, Charles turns his own hand over, palm meeting Arthur’s, and interlocks their fingers, watching his expression, hesitating like there’s more he wants to say.

“A-And...after,” Arthur says, still focused on some point within the fire. It’s physically painful enough to talk, but Charles can see it’s just as difficult emotionally too, tight in Arthur’s jaw. “I- Uh. I’m...sorry you… You saw it. S’stupid.”

“Don’t apologise.”

“Ain’t...hah-happened in a… Long time. I-I thought- And you was- I’m sorry. S’stupid.” He sighs, defeated. The words aren’t coming.

“It ain’t stupid, Arthur,” Charles says, voice still quiet, but now firm too, catching Arthur’s attention.

He looks up, only a foot between them, folded legs almost touching. The blue in his eyes is still painfully bloodshot, miniature explosions in both as if a battlefield is behind them, angry red fractures splintering across both eyeballs, bleeding cracks cut through snow. Charles meets his gaze, alight. Holds it with the same gentle assurance as he does his hand.

“It happens to me too,” Charles says, starkly honest. “Fear I cannot control. Would you mock me for it?”

“No,” Arthur says, frowning. “‘Course not.”

“Then do not mock yourself.” Charles’ expression is sorrowful, just for a moment, the lit fire in his eyes keeping Arthur transfixed, like a moth to a flame. “You are human. We feel, we hurt, we are afraid. Some of our scars never heal, not truly. But shame, and repression… Isolation. They simply deepen those wounds.”

Charles squeezes his hand, and his features soften. Always so kind, looking at Arthur in a way that makes him feel seen, feel supported. As if he’s not going crazy. Like he’s himself and worthy of listening to. “If you want to talk about it, ever… You never have to be ashamed. Not with me.”

For a long, long moment, Arthur simply looks at him. Processing the information, and so grateful for it, as if it’s the first kindness he’s ever been given, a blessing he isn’t sure he deserves. His eyes seem to flicker, the fire reflected in the glassy surface.

A tiny gesture; he nods, and whispers, “Thank you.” 

It feels so inadequate, but Charles doesn't think so. He’s drawn to how he winces with the movement of his head, even though he barely moves at all. The noose marks around his neck are angry, even more visible now Arthur’s only in his underwear by way of a shirt. Charles can’t help but look at the mess of his throat, the chafing burn, the fingernail tracks disappearing down his chest. Arthur had fought viciously, yet still could well be dead if- If Charles hadn’t-

“Let me make you some ointment for it,” he says, gentle. “I’ll pick fresh herbs in the morning.” Before he can weigh whether it’s a good idea or not, he brings his free hand to Arthur’s shoulder, where he’d touched him that afternoon, keeping him grounded. Arthur’s breath stutters, but he doesn’t pull away, watching Charles beneath his eyelashes, chin slightly tipped up as he again nods the faintest amount.

As careful as he can manage, Charles touches the backs of two fingers to the rope burn. The skin is hot, not just from the fire, raw, peeling, choked so hard by the ligature that the skin blistered and split without any blade touching it. Black bruising has swollen up underneath, all the way to Arthur’s chin, a wide ring like a hideous collar.

Arthur’s breath wobbles again, squeezing Charles’ hand in his as his fingers trace the ugly bruises, stroking Arthur’s neck below his jaw where his stubble starts to grow, and further down where the claw marks tear his clavicle. He feels like he should say something, yet also like there aren’t any words in any language that would be appropriate, mesmerised by the rise and fall of Arthur’s chest, the pulse he can feel in his throat. Still thumping away, as if it was never threatened.

For the first time, Arthur can see how afraid Charles was. Fear lurks in his eyes as he touches the wound, breath unsteady for just a moment, his hand tight in Arthur’s as if holding on for dear life. Scared he’ll lose him again.

Slowly, Charles drops his hand back to Arthur’s shoulder, lingering around his bicep, thumbing the muscle through thin fabric. His eyes drift up, and Arthur’s watching him, eyelids heavy, chewing his bottom lip. Flicks his eyes down to Charles’ lips, a reflexive glance he can’t help until it’s too late to stop it.

The fire spits and pops beside them, and the sparking embers seem to flash self-awareness into Arthur’s eyes, pupils darting in momentary alarm, the same flare of panic as earlier. He looks down, but doesn’t pull back. Hesitates, trying to find the right words.

“What’re we doin’, Charles?” he whispers, hoarse, like trying to force rocks through a tiny hole, almost impossible, but adamant the scraps of his voice are heard. “Us. This. What’re we doing?”

Squeezing his hand, Charles tries to find Arthur’s eyes again, keep him from succumbing to whatever doubt drowns him, clinging to him like grease lines a dirty pan. “What do you want to be doing?” he asks, soft with sincerity.

Arthur’s huff of laughter is empty, and he finally looks back up at Charles, eyebrows slightly sloping down, crease between them pulling them together. Helpless. Like he’s trapped all over again.

Facing Charles’ kind and perfect features, so close he could count the hairs in his stubble, Arthur feels like a weed must feel in a meadow full of wildflowers. A tiny blue aster in a tangled clump of green wire, longing for the sun to shine on him, to bless him with some warmth and light so that he might grow alongside the real flowers. “S’a dangerous question,” he says finally, lips so swollen he barely moves them at all.

Charles’ gaze slips down to them, slow like pouring molasses. Barely a foot away, yet just out of reach. Like Icarus striving for the sunlight as his wings burn; it’s something Charles isn’t meant to have. The lonely moon faithfully following the sun, desperate for his touch but doomed never to meet, forced to be content with basking in his precious light and glowing with his reflection - a pale comfort Charles will accept in lieu of what he truly wants, if it means he can still watch Arthur shine from across the stars.

“I don’t mind a bit of danger,” he says, hushed but ardently sincere. His thumb strokes semi-circles into Arthur’s bicep. “Whatever you want this to be… Us. I want it too.”

Searching, Arthur’s eyes blink up at him, waiting for some sort of rebuttal, some refusal, waiting for Charles to push him away and laugh at such a hilarious joke they’ve shared. Parade him in front of the others for even daring to hope he could be serious.

It doesn’t come. Of course it doesn’t come. Charles looks at him as something precious, with an expression that can only be open adoration.

Nothing sounds but their joint breathing. The world around them is lost, the grazing horses, the fire, the music and laughter from across the clearing, where whiskey has joined the storytelling and the cicadas hum around the oak tree. Faded beyond importance.

“Knew you was...liable to m-misbehavin’,” Arthur says, voice cracking on a bare chuckle like a splintered eggshell, resorting to humour as one last defence. He smirks with the corner of his mouth, and Charles wants nothing in the world but to kiss it.

“I can misbehave plenty,” he says, deep in his chest and sultry like a summer thunderstorm, echoing their words from that morning, so very long ago.

Arthur’s blistered Adam’s apple judders as he swallows, pained wince quickly replaced by a warm and hopeful longing, glancing again at Charles’ thick lips. He lingers closer, admiring Charles’ face like it’s a piece of artwork he’s not supposed to be looking at, and could be torn from at any second.

The short distance hangs between them like hung lanterns, stretching out any uncertainty until there’s nothing but each other, in one moment together. Charles squeezes their joined hands once more.

And then, Arthur kisses him. He pushes forward, presses into Charles’ lips for just a short, hesitant moment before breaking but staying in place, not a half-inch between them. The world holds its breath. Arthur’s eyes flutter shut and don’t open, caught in that first second as if reliving a dream, not wanting to wake up. 

“Wanted that for...ages,” he murmurs, and sighs his held breath against Charles’ lips, faltering, teetering on the edge of a new cliff, unsure which way they’ll both fall.

“Me too,” Charles says, whispered, voice thick with anticipation. Arthur’s eyes open in question - _Really?_ \- and Charles only meets them for one electric second before he’s kissing him in reply, tilting his head and leading, confident, capturing and recapturing Arthur’s timid mouth in a hungry, desperate crash. There’s a noise caught in Arthur’s throat as he responds, surging forward so intently that his nose is buried in Charles’ cheek, unshaven skin prickling, breath sudden, free hand coming up to the back of his neck to cling to him, keeping him in place.

The sweetness of peaches is stuck to Arthur’s tongue, Charles brushing it with his own and feeling the knot in Arthur’s heaving breath. Reverent, he touches Arthur’s face, cupping his jaw, thumb stroking one of the few places where his skin isn’t bruised as he steadies the kiss, slowing them both so he can drink Arthur in, heady and sensual like pouring rich wine.

It isn’t long, but Arthur’s panting in mere moments, flushed across his cheeks, and doesn’t open his eyes straight away when he breaks the kiss, remaining close enough that he can feel Charles’ breath on his wet lips, could shift and snatch another without moving at all. He leans his forehead against Charles’ and simply breathes, hand moving to bracket Charles’ cheek, firm, holding like he’s afraid he’ll disappear.

“Fuck,” he sighs, when he regains enough composure, and Charles laughs, deep and rumbling. His thumb traces the line of Arthur’s cheekbone, and he nuzzles Arthur’s nose, gentle, and so affectionate that it aches in Arthur’s chest.

“Next time, hm? You can buy me a drink first. Reckon you owe me.”

It takes a second, but Arthur realises what he means with a snorting giggle, splintered in his throat. The noise makes Charles laugh too, pulling back enough so he can see Arthur’s opening eyes, like the sunrise broaching the horizon, can admire the calmness fallen over his face, no room left for any doubt. Not tonight.

“Or at least, when you ain’t half dead.”

Arthur manages a chuckle, and all but falls into Charles, arms around his neck in a loose hug as he again leans to touch foreheads, eyes shut, just breathing. The weight of Charles’ hands fall and settle somewhere in the small of his back, warm reassurance covering his spine. _I’ve got you_. Despite the exhaustion, he feels much more alive than he has in a while.

“I dunno,” he murmurs, and shifts a little closer to him, leaning down to his shoulder. 

He’s careful of the beads on Charles’ vest, smoothing them with one finger before he rests his uninjured cheek there in the juncture between neck and collarbone, such a tiny careful gesture that Charles feels his heart flutter. “If nearly dyin’ gets me...that k-kinda kiss. _And_ -” Voice breaking, he clears his throat, wheezing. “And peach cobbler. Might just...make a habit of it.”

His eyes drift shut, head tucked safely into Charles. A soft chuckle is the only reply at first, Charles burying his nose in Arthur’s hair, watching the embers jump and flutter around the fire. Then he retakes Arthur’s hand, clasping it between them. It’s as if it’s always been there. A part of his hand’s own architecture - Arthur’s fingers entwined with his - like the burn scar he’d been given in Blackwater, all those months ago. “You’re a fool,” he says, fond.

“Sure am… An’ you’re a bigger fool,” Arthur mumbles back, the fire licking at his features. He squeezes his fingers in return, nails blackened with bruising, fingertips bloodied and raw. “For puttin’ up w’me.”

“A pair of fools together, then,” Charles says, stroking Arthur’s thumb with his own.

Silence settles comfortably over their small corner of existence. Insects hum in the grasses and ferns bordering the camp, nocturnal animals rustling the forest understory to the east of the humble clearing. There are a thousand thoughts in Arthur’s head, more numerous than the stars above them, but none of them quite important enough to disturb him from the pillow he’s made of Charles’ shoulder. Infinite niggling doubts and worries, wavering questions, clarifications, loud and boisterous feelings, all twinkling insistently in what little remains of his waking consciousness, asking to be heard, to be given attention.

But for the first time since that morning, he exists completely outside of the maelstrom of anxiety that so often reigns inside his head. Floating, aware only of the rise and fall of Charles’ full chest, the heat of the fire, the firm, intimate way he holds Arthur’s hand. Desire is there too, simmering in the coolness of the night beyond the fire. He wants to kiss Charles again, wants to feel him pressed against him, wants to climb into his lap, touch every inch he can reach - but somehow there doesn’t seem to be any rush to acknowledge it, and Arthur tucks it away with the myriad other things he’s feeling and wondering and questioning, fast losing his battle with his own tiredness.

Reluctantly, Charles knows he’ll have to pull Arthur from his dozing soon. The man is barely clinging to wakefulness, drained like a squeezed paint tube, and just as crooked, turned half to Charles, legs folded on the ground. He needs his bed, as much as Charles wants to keep him for himself.

For a moment though, he can’t bring himself to move, and ultimately leave Arthur’s side. Not now, not knowing all the glances and touches and quiet mornings were just as special to Arthur as they were to him. Not with Arthur’s kiss still on his lips.

It’s just a tiny shift between them, a margin give in the course of fate - a blade thrown on target and not an inch to the left, a choking half second before complete unconsciousness, a squeezed trigger held between a shot - yet it feels like the world itself is new, like the stars are looking down on them with different eyes than yesterday.

“Oh!” Arthur says, and Charles can feel his hair tickle his neck as he shifts slightly. 

“Hm?”

“Th...Those cornfields. Who- Who’d’ve thought...m-maize could be such...ah, a _maze_. Get it?”

“Shit, Arthur.” Understated laughter comes in a flourish of breath, like a string of buttons popping open, Charles turning his head to bury his nose in Arthur’s hair, affectionate. “Were you keeping that all day just to tell me?”

“You’re th’only one…’preciates good hah...humour,” Arthur mumbles, round cheeks, rosy from the fire, giving away his smile.

“I don’t know,” Charles says. “It was a little corny.”

“Pfffh-” Rasping, Arthur swears, laughter no more than a wheeze that’s buried in Charles’ shoulder. Only Charles could make him laugh after such an impossible day. Teetering over the chasm between life and the lack of it, and it’s Charles’ dry humour that brings him back from the edge, keeps him hopeful that death wouldn’t be the kindness he sometimes wonders about.

Charles nuzzles his hair again, Arthur heavy and warm beside him as his laughter trails away into nothing but grateful breath, joining the swirling embers from the fire. Bed beckons them, but he lets him be a moment longer, sharing one space together, and feeling closer to belonging than he has in years.


End file.
